After a long day of work, many students arrive home feeling exhausted. Good roommates help, but sometimes, you don't want to be around humans. To really unwind, sometimes you just need to sit with your cat.
On Saturday, April 5, Columbia’s Cat Daddy Cat Café, located on 2533 Main St., will host a Cat Adoption Fair. Customers will have the chance to enjoy food and drinks, hang out with some cats and maybe even decide to take a new pet home.
Cat Daddy set up shop back in January. Thecafé is run by husband-and-wife team Mohammed Saadeddin (The Cat Daddy) and Melissa Peterson. With their nearby restaurant Noma Bistro by Al Amir already long-established, opening an entirely new venture wasn’t the first thing on their minds.
Peterson, who had never even been to a cat café before opening Cat Daddy, said the café’s origins lie with the simple act of Saadeddin taking in some strays that were living behind the restaurant. Things escalated from there.
A cat sits behind a cat tree on March 27, 2025 at the Cat Daddy Cat Cafe. Cats sit in a closed off room where customers can sit and play with the cats while they enjoy their drinks.
“He started feeding them, and then they started bringing babies and it got kind of overwhelming. We didn’t realize cats multiply as quickly as they do,” Peterson said. “We gave away as many as we could, and now we’re just like, 'well, what can we do?' So he thought it would be a fun thing to open a cat café.”
While a group of adoptable cats will be brought in for the fair, all cats that regularly occupy the café’s large cat room are permanent residents, rescued by the owners or born with them, Peterson said. With names like Mac, Sugar Bear and Blondie, it's easy to see why Peterson said regular customers fall in love with the cuddly crew.
When Saadeddin enters the cat room, which is full of toys and cat trees, the cats crowd around him. He said there was a simple reason for the connection.
“I’m the cat daddy, that’s why,” Saadeddin said. “I raised all of them, I took care of them and some of them, they were even born in my lap.”
Peterson said she sees the café as a therapeutic place to let go of some stress, whether it’s from work, class oranything else in life that locals could use an escape from.
“It’s just a nice, safe, relaxing, calming place for people,” Peterson said. “Life is so fast-paced now, nobody ever takes the time to just kind of take a deep breath, relax, stop and smell the roses."
Saadeddin said it's especially rewarding to see people with medical conditions and special needs bond with the cats, like one day when a mother and her autistic daughter, who were going through a stressful time, came in.
“She went in there and played with Tiger cat for about maybe 10 minutes, and Tiger fell asleep. And this young lady, she fell asleep with him for about 15 minutes,” Saadeddin said. “That’s kind of what made it all worthwhile to me.”
Peterson said the café also welcomes USC students, with some professors having reached out to host a class there. She said they’re planning on implementing study group discounts in the future.
"We're going to try and reach out more," Peterson said. "Like discounts for study groups and if they [students] wanted before exams to just destress or a relaxing place to study."
The adoption fair will be supported by local animal rescue organization PETSinc, who will be on-site with a no-appointment needed mobile veterinary unit that will provide a wide variety of services including vaccines, bloodwork, claw trimming and flea/tick prevention, Akeba Johnson, PETSinc's mobile veterinary practice manager said
Johnson said Cat Daddy and PETSinc's goals and values are a perfect match.
“Our mission [is] to reduce the number of unwanted animals that are roaming the street, that are homeless and even hungry,” Johnson said. “When we heard about what they were doing and the passion that they had behind it, it aligned with us so well that we couldn’t help ourselves but to be driven to partner with them.”
Fourth-year hospitality student Ashlyn Simokat, who’s visited the café, said the fair represents a great opportunity for students to potentially make a connection with a new pet.
“It’d be worth it to go, because they can just sit there and hang out with different cats and see which one they, get along with the most,” Simokat said. “I feel like if you see a cat in person, you spend some time with it, there's more likely a chance for them to adopt it.”
Peterson said that cats have a way of winning people over with their emotions, leading to many disregarding their expectations.
“We didn’t have cats growing up too much, they just kind of work their way into your heart. They show up unexpected,” Peterson said. “But then you end up just falling in love with them.”
The Neighborhood Cat Adoption Fair will take place from noon to 5 p.m. Cat Daddy Café is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday Reservations for the cat room can be made by calling 803-708-1562.