Dakota Cat Cafe: Cold Coffees and Cuddly Cats

To the southeast of Bismarck, in the town of Lincoln, a cozy café is filled with the sounds of coffee steamers, small talk, and … meowing?

The Dakota Cat Café opened for business on Dec. 16, 2025. It offers visitors a place to drink coffee while getting their fill of kitty time. Ashley Kneavel is the owner and founder of the café. She was inspired to create a cat café in North Dakota after stumbling upon a coffee shop similar to her own in Phoenix, Arizona. 

“I'd never been to one, so I went and fell in love with the concept,” Kneavel said. “So, I came back here and I noticed North Dakota doesn't have one. So I hooked up with Julie Schirado with Furry Friends [Rockin’ Rescue], and we kind of worked together to build this.”

Through the cat café, people can interact with the cats and discover their personality. The cats featured there are up for adoption. To adopt, visitors must fill out a form at the café. After the form is completed, it takes about 24 to 48 hours for the request to be processed by Furry Friends Rockin’ Rescue. If the form is approved, people can pick up their cat and take it home.

In order for visitors to interact with the cats, the café needed a unique design to keep things sanitary and clean. The cat café is separated into two sections; an area to drink coffee, and a cat lounge. The cat lounge is separated by a sally port, where visitors must sanitize before and after entering the lounge. The port also keeps the cats from escaping and entering the main area.

“[This] is kind of a new concept for everybody, including the city and the health department,” Kneavel said. “So it was a lot of planning and reaching out to other cafes and other states and seeing what they do as a concept. But I mean, if you stick with it and you keep pushing forward, you can do anything.”

The cat café is accommodating to college students as well. Like many other businesses in the Bismarck/Mandan area, the Dakota Cat Café gives discounts and special offers for college students. For example, Kneavel plans to implement study hours on Friday nights from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. By showing a staff member their student ID, students can get 10% off a drink of their choice. They may also study in the cat lounge and spend some time cuddling with the cats.

Some students at Bismarck State College have already visited the cat café and spent time with the cats. These students may not see cats often due to living in the dorms, or if a family member has an allergy. This allows those students to interact with cats in a clean, controlled environment.

BSC Student Jess Rhoades visited the café and had a positive experience. Rhoades is from Lincoln, so going to a cat café was something different in the community.

“I thought it was really cool,” Rhoades said. “We don’t have a ton of stuff to do around town, so the addition of a cat cafe was neat … I know the building it’s in pretty well and I think they made the space they had work.”

Rita Wise Spirit is another BSC student who visited the café not long after it opened. Wise Spirit said she loved the café and recommended that other students check it out.

“Definitely go, 'cause it's so fun,” Wise Spirit said. “It’s, like, so relaxing. The coffee's also really good. And also, make the reservation way before [you go], because sometimes it gets so busy that you can't even get in if you just show up for a walk in.”

As more people discover the coffee shop and cats, Kneavel considers what’s next for the cat café.

“The only big thing that's coming is a drive thru,” Kneavel said. “As plans for expanding—not yet, no. We're just gonna see how this works out, and then if we get to that point, yeah.”

As the Dakota Cat Café becomes more widely known throughout the community, the café has become a popular spot for cat lovers, no matter who they are or where they are from.

To learn more about Dakota Cat Café, check out their social media channels on Instagram and Facebook. If looking to book a lounge time, check out their website dakotacatcafe.com.

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