A cat café is a theme café whose attraction is cats that can be watched and played with. Patrons pay a cover fee, generally hourly, and thus cat cafés can be seen as a form of supervised indoor pet rental.

The world's first cat café opened in Taiwan in 1998. The Taiwanese cat café, located in Taipei, eventually became famous in Japan and began to attract many Japanese tourists as well as domestic visitors. In Japan, the first cat café opened in Osaka in 2004.

Cat cafés are quite popular in Japan, with Tokyo being home to at least 39 cat cafés. A pioneer is Cat's Store (猫の店, Neko no Mise^?), by Norimasa Hanada, which opened in 2005. The popularity of cat cafés in Japan is attributed to many apartments forbidding pets, and to cats providing relaxing companionship in what may otherwise be a stressful and lonesome urban life; other forms of pet rental are also common in Japan.

There are various cat cafés. Some cat cafés feature specific categories of cat such as black cats, fat cats, rare breed cats or ex-stray cats. A cat café must obtain a license and comply with the strict requirements and regulations of the Animal Treatment/Protection Law.

The domestic cat (Felis catus or Felis silvestris catus, informally Felis domesticus) is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal. It is often called the housecat when kept as an indoor pet, or simply the cat when there is no need to distinguish it from other felids and felines. Cats are valued by humans for companionship and ability to hunt vermin and household pests. They are primarily nocturnal.

Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felids, with strong, flexible bodies, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted to killing small prey. As crepuscular predators, cats use their acute hearing and ability to see in near darkness to locate prey. Not only can cats hear sounds too faint for human ears, they can also hear sounds higher in frequency than humans can perceive. This is because the usual prey of cats (particularly rodents such as mice) make high frequency noises, so the hearing of the cat has evolved to pinpoint these faint high-pitched sounds. Cats also have a much better sense of smell than humans.

A café (/ˈkæfeɪ/ or /kæˈfeɪ/), also spelled cafe, in most countries refers to an establishment which focuses on serving coffee. The name derives from the French, Portuguese and Spanish word for the drink and is often pronounced "kaff" (/ˈkæff/) in the British English.

In the United States, "cafe" may refer to an informal restaurant offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches, also known as a "coffee shop", while what is regarded as a café elsewhere is termed a coffeehouse.

In most European countries, such as Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, etc., the term café implies primarily serving coffee, typically accompanied by a slice of cake/tart/pie, a "Danish pastry", a bun, or similar sweet pastry. Many (or most) cafés also serve light meals such as sandwiches. European cafés often have tables on the pavement as well as indoors. Some cafés also serve alcoholic beverages, particularly in Southern European countries.

In the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland a café (with the acute accent) is similar to those in other European countries, while a cafe (without acute accent, and often pronounced "caff") is more likely to be a greasy spoon style eating place, serving mainly fried food, in particular breakfast dishes. In the Netherlands and Belgium, a café is the equivalent of a bar, and also sells alcoholic beverages. In the Netherlands a koffiehuis serves coffee, while a coffee shop (using the English term) sells soft drugs (cannabis and hashish) and is generally not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages.