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New Zealand's first cat café, The Cat Lounge, has reached its fundraising target on Kickstarter and is set to open this year.

Friends Vicky Chapman and Mike Jones will be opening The Cat Lounge on the North Shore.



The deadline for their fundraising finished on Saturday with more than $36,000 in pledges made.



The owners have partnered with Friskies catfood and Lonely Miaow, a non-profit organisation which rescues stray and abandoned cats.



FROM THE ARCHIVE

* Friends plan cat cafe



Pledgers were offered rewards including free coffee and cake, cat naming rights and a job as a cat cuddler to get the cats and kittens used to the public before opening.



"Because we've promised so many things like wheelchair access we're having to be quite fussy," Jones said. "We're looking at three or four buildings a week."

Once a building is found, resource consent could take six to eight weeks to be granted.

KATASHA MCCULLOUGH/FAIRFAX NZ Friends Vicky Chapman and Mike Jones, with his cat Muffin, will be opening New Zealand's first cat cafe.

Jones said Lonely Miaow will help the cafe find the right cats and Friskies will support the pair in several ways including food and a behaviour specialist.

Rescue cat Fuse has been recruited as the first member of the Cat Lounge crew.

Half of The Cat Lounge will be set up like a normal cafe while the other will be "a cat lover's dream".



About 15 cats will be free to roam and play with customers while movies and cat videos play on big screen televisions.



The cats will be rescued from local shelters to live in the cafe, where their welfare will be Jones and Chapman's "top priority".



Jones has quit his fulltime job in banking and Chapman is starting to reduce her hours working as an office manager for a construction company.



"We're just two regular Kiwis with a cool idea and we put it out there and it's gone mental."

Cat lovers as far away as Wellington have said they will come on road trips to Auckland to visit the cafe.



The Cat Lounge will work with Auckland Council and animal welfare organisations to make sure the cats get the best care possible.



Jones and Chapman want to offer special days and rates for community groups and charities such as the Blind Foundation and IHC.



Outside normal hours The Cat Lounge will also host birthday parties, movie nights, fundraisers and other events.

Jones will look after the cats while Chapman runs the cafe side of the business.

She already has her own baking business on the side and used to work as a chef.

"To quote a really cheesy thing, you only live once and cooking is my passion," she said. Jones hopes the cafe will appeal to all cat lovers, even if they have their own pets at home. "I have cats and I'm surrounded by cats all the time and I was the first one who wanted to go [to a cat cafe] so much I made my own."

Facts and Cats:

Ten to 15 cats will live at the cafe.

They will be rescued from local shelters.

Cat lovers from as far as Christchurch have plans to visit.

There will be separate spaces for the cafe and the cats.

People Auckland-wide have applied for jobs.

There will be special days and rates for community groups and charities.