The road to Tiffany Lee’s El Jefe Cat Café was an exercise in patience.
After months of hitting dead ends with spaces, the entrepreneur found the perfect spot for a cat lounge at 3025 N. Campbell Avenue, Suite 141, Tucson. The lounge, which opened on Halloween 2019, didn’t have beverage service, instead the staff encouraged guests to hang out with cats.
“It’s a blessing because it’s absolutely the best space we could have chosen,” she said. “Unfortunately, it was bad timing. It was Halloween of 2019. We had four and a half months before we had to close due to the pandemic because we’re a place of gathering. We closed for five months.”
She could not get PPP loans because she wasn’t taking payroll. Turning to her entrepreneurial skills, Lee started sewing animal- and Tucson-themed face masks.
“Literally, we were sewing 50 face masks a day,” she said.
“Even when we were allowed to open and people were allowed to go out, we still received the online orders for face masks. Somehow, someway, we made it through COVID.”
On May 11, she and her daughter, Victoria Brown, unveiled the El Jefe Cat Café, complete with espresso drinks, coffee, tea, hot chocolate and Italian sodas to enjoy while mingling with the cats.
Lee said she feels blessed to be part of the Tucson community. Friends and neighbors supported her efforts through the pandemic — financially and through word of mouth.
“I don’t know any other community or city like this,” she said. “Tucson residents just get ‘local’ and they decided what they wanted to stay during COVID.
“They supported us. They went out of their way. People in grocery lines would ask each other where they bought their masks, and they could give them our Facebook links.
“They kept us afloat.”
Various stories tell the tales of cat cafés. Some say they started in Vienna in 1912, while others cite the first one opening in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1998. In the United States, most cafés focus on adoptions.
El Jefe Cat Café is no different. Its resident felines come from Finally My Forever Home Rescue in Tucson. All the furry friends are healthy and available for adoption, which isn’t required. Guests can just come in and play with the cats. Lee is quick to add that El Jefe Cat Café is not a shelter or rescue.
“They started out in Asia for a purpose,” Lee said.
“It was probably eight years before it hit America. It started in Denver and Seattle and the concept changed. In Asia, their living quarters were getting smaller and smaller and couldn’t have pets.
“So, they have high-end cats in cafés with coffee. They were like zoo animals, permanent cats. That doesn’t translate well with the United States. When the model came over to the United States, everybody started working with rescues. The cats are all adoptable. They have fun, they don’t feel guilty. They play with them.
During the grand opening celebration/ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 10, Lee was in tears.
“As a female-owned business — and somebody who’s been funding everything out of her own pocket or credit card — it was a very, very hard endeavor,” she said.
“It was uphill the entire time. I believed in Tucson the entire time, though. They’ve really come through. Now, I’d say 80% of my customers are completely new people or tourists. They’re usually in big cities and people want to visit a cat café.”
An Arkansas native, Lee said she hopes she makes Tucsonans proud.
“I wanted to represent a lot of Tucson in our space,” she said. “That’s why we’ve incorporated the décor and murals. We’re trying to share local businesses in our space as well. We want it to be a tourist destination on top of something that local Tucsonans are proud of.”
And the cats as well.
“I’m just an entrepreneur and I was looking for a business that had more purpose than chasing a carrot,” she said.
“I like that this helped people destress, have fun and create memories.”
El Jefe Cat Café
3025 N. Campbell Avenue, Suite 141, Tucson
520-849-8856, eljefecatlounge.com
Hours:
10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mon. to Thurs., and Sun.
10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat.
