The Kitty Café

The first Kitty Café opened in Nottingham in March 2015.

Abandoned cats and kittens are welcomed – as are paying
customers wanting paninis, tea and cake – with cats
everywhere. For cat lovers it’s both a treat to be among lots
of cats – and a good feeling to be contributing towards stray
cats being looked after. The café also acts as a cat showroom –
with the hope being that visitors will fall in love with a cat –
and then adopt it. Co-owner Kate Charles-Richards says: ‘We
are operating as a cat rescue and our number one concern is
the welfare of cats. We want to find them a permanent home.’

When it first opened, people talked of concerns about cat hairs in the food – but the café is designed to
keep the kitchen enclosed – with no chance of cat contamination. A customer comment left on the
Bookatable website says: “Second visit, love cats, great fun… Cafe is clean and well organised, great
atmosphere among patrons, everyone talking about the cats”.

The success of the Kitty Café is shown by a newly announced expansion to open a second café in a prime
City site in Leeds. The site will benefit from a £500,000 refit, and architects CPMG have been commissioned
to design a cat-friendly environment with full air conditioning, large windows and a luxury 'cat snug' - a
human-free area for the felines to retreat to and relax in.

Kate says: "We are getting more and more

excited about Leeds. There is still a lot of work
to do. As we have massive expansion plans in
the UK, Leeds is going to be our showcase,"
said Kate, who is bringing two duty managers
from her Nottingham cafe to run the new site.
"No expense in being spared on our kitties and
the customer experience. We have a team of
companies working with us to get every tiny
detail correct and this will mean the third and
fourth Kitty Cafes will follow quickly.”

The business will employ around 25 staff, and

will release job application details via social
media once the opening details are finalised.
Around 35 rescue cats will live in the cafe full-
time.
Sources: various, including the Yorkshire Post July 10th 2017

Questions (25 marks; 25 minutes)

1a) Outline one possible reason why Kate saw an opportunity for this business idea. (2)

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1b) Outline one reward Kate may receive from expanding her Kitty Café business rapidly. (2)

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1c) Analyse how Kate has added value to the customer experience at the Kitty Café. (6)

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1d) Analyse the role of the entrepreneur in setting up a new business such as the Kitty Café. (6)

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Expanding the Kitty Café rapidly can bring financial and other rewards to Kate.

1e) Justify whether financial or non-financial rewards are likely to be the more important for her.
(9)

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END of questions
 Answers/Marking

1a) Outline one possible reason why Kate saw an opportunity for this business idea. (2)

 She may be a cat-lover who realised that there were many people like her – who love cats
and are willing to pay to be around them – and to help pay for better care for strays
 OR She may have seen this exact business idea in America – and seen that the same
opportunity existed in the UK

1b) Outline one reward Kate may receive from expanding her Kitty Café business rapidly. (2)

 Rapid growth may make it hard for anyone else to catch her up, so she can open new
outlets before others can copy; that would make long-term success very much more likely

1c) Analyse how Kate has added value to the customer experience at the Kitty Café. (6)

 She has turned a coffee and a cake into an experience – a modest equivalent to the Hard
Rock Café turning a burger into an experience (with loud rock music). And, of course, an
experience is worth paying a bit extra for. Not everyone loves cats, but those who do are
willing to pay more – to reflect their greater enjoyment. The cat rescue element also adds
to the value the customer places on their experience.

1d) Analyse the role of the entrepreneur in setting up a new business such as the Kitty Café. (6)

 The role of the entrepreneur begins with spotting an opportunity – for a cat-themed café;
but it’s almost true to say that that is the easy bit. Far harder is to put your own money
and reputation on the line by turning the idea into reality. The dreamer never fails, but the
entrepreneur risks failure. Turning the idea into reality means taking a whole series of
decisions, each of which may prove wrong. When Kate opens her second café in Leeds,
she can be expected to have used all that she has learned from the mistakes made first
time. Nottingham was that first time. Then, once everything is ready, the entrepreneur has
to organise and manage resources from staff to cash – to keep everything running
smoothly. Once you’ve started, every mistake could mean a grumpy customer and a bad
review on social media. A must to avoid.

Expanding the Kitty Café rapidly can bring financial and other rewards to Kate.

1e) Justify whether financial or non-financial rewards are likely to be the more important for her.
(9)

 It seems that non-financial rewards are important to her. She seems to have a genuine
love of the cat – and hence the expansion of her café chain is important: more cats
 rescued. But the eagerness with which she refers in the text to opening her 3rd and 4th
cafes suggests that there’s more to it than that. She wants business success as well as the
moral satisfaction of caring for more cats. This might be down to some failures earlier in
her life (in school, perhaps), or she may simply be a hugely competitive, driven person for
whom coming second is a problem.
 And then there’s the possibility that financial rewards matter most. She may be good at
creating publicity about cats, but really only be doing this because she’s spotted a good
business opportunity. In other words the cat café may be a way of charging higher prices
and getting more customers rather than a labour of love. If so she’s being clever – but
perhaps rather manipulative. She might argue, though, that a business employing 25 staff
is a thoroughly good thing – even if it’s being cunning rather than caring in relation to cats.
 It’s impossible to know what Kate’s motives are, but if we take the text at face value we
can assume that she cares for the cats and therefore is pursuing business success only as a
means towards a pure end based on better lives for cats.