Where Is Gato Café From Shark Tank Today?
Episode 29 of the 6th "Shark Tank" season introduced us to Adriana Montano. She's a Colombian native who proposed to open one of the quirkiest and coolest cafés in Florida (and the first of its kind there): Gato Café. If you know a little Spanish, you may know the translation to be "cat café." Montano's appearance in May of 2015 may not be very memorable, though, since her business never really took off. Before the year's end, Gato Café had apparently used up all of its nine lives, and the business' social media accounts and website have since been deleted.
The young entrepreneur pitched with passion and even provided some feline companionship for the judges during her presentation, although not all of them were appreciative. Unfortunately, it turns out that cats are quite polarizing. Despite Montano's good-hearted motives, none of the four regular judges (nor guest Shark Nick Woodman) took the bait, partially because they simply didn't like cats, and also because — the idea aside — there wasn't much to invest in.
Montano did try to capitalize on her "Shark Tank" exposure to get her idea off the ground. She briefly (and unsuccessfully) turned to crowdfunding, but sadly, she only gathered a tiny fraction of the intended start-up goal in her Indiegogo campaign. And unfortunately, publications like Business Insider have repeatedly called Gato Café one of the worst "Shark Tank" pitches of all time, ever.
What exactly is a cat café?
Adriana Montano's idea of becoming the best coffee shop in Florida obviously included cats with the coffee, but there was more to it than just that. Her professed hope — via YouTube — was to let shelter-cats "live cage-free lives while waiting for their forever home" by partnering with a local animal shelter. But her altruistic concept wasn't exactly original; cat cafes have been a reality since 1998.
Essentially, a cat café combines the casualness of a coffee shop with the coziness of a warm feline snuggled up on your lap. Patrons can sip a hot beverage while showering affection on rescue cats waiting to find a home. Of course, the hope is that customers will choose to adopt a cat after spending time with them; however, there's no obligation, if you just want to visit.
Typically, patrons entering these cafes will pay an entry fee, which helps cover costs of the felines' food, hygiene, and medical care. Montano, too, proposed a $9 cover charge for the Gato Café to offset overhead costs, but evidently, the idea of an admittance fee was another mark against her in the Sharks' books.
A feline-friendly idea ahead of its time
It appears that Adriana Montano's business concept wasn't without potential; it was just ahead of its time. The cat café idea caught on first in Asia before spreading to Europe. The U.S. was one of the later adopters. In fact, this entrepreneur made her proposal just months after America's first cat café opened in California circa 2014, and it seems she was onto something big in the States. There are now over a dozen cat cafes spread across Florida, as well as many more throughout the U.S.
Montano wasn't the first to pitch a creative café concept to the Sharks, either. In the previous season, the Cookie Dough Café made a successful bid and is now a thriving business. Even though Montano's own café didn't claw its way to success, the dream from her "Shark Tank" audition video has surely been fulfilled: to "change kitty lives for the better!" In the years following her TV appearance, many other states have celebrated getting their first cat café, resulting in more cats getting out of shelters and into homes. And that's good news for local cats and cat-lovers alike.