People love their pets. And while high-end services for dogs have been popping up around town for years, Chance Sanchez and Tiffany Chen wanted to create something special for their feline counterparts.
Enter Chats de Thé, a luxury cat hotel in Beverly Grove.
Chen, who said she would cat sit as a “side hustle” at clients’ homes as well as her own, and Sanchez, who had wrapped a film in L.A., decided to create the business together. The company launched this year.
They would not disclose the number of cats seen per year or revenue, but said clients range from “college students going abroad, to movie producers and celebrities traveling to film, to Olympic athletes competing at the Paris Games.”
They added that some cats stay just for daycare, while others stay as long as three months. Chats de Thé charges $30-95 a night per cat depending on the type of “suite” the cat stays in with the owners looking to be the “Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons of cat boarding.”
The hotel can hold up to 32 cats and takes cues from luxury brands with the design modeled after the monochromatic color at Gucci Nisantasi at the Istanbul Airport and has opulent rooms with nice beds. TVs for the cats also feature scenic videos with birds and other animals.
There are also additional services pet owners can opt into such as portrait sessions and tea time for their cats which includes a sardine puree, catnip tea and other treats. (Chats de Thé means Tea Cats in French.)
The amount people are spending on their pets is increasing. This year the American Pet Products Association expects pet industry expenditures to rise to nearly $151 billion, up from $97.1 billion just five years prior.
Looking forward, Sanchez and Chen plan to market the hotel and do more outreach in order to claw into some of that market. They are also partnering with advocacy groups and recently held a cat adoption with a rescue operation.
But both say the cats are really in charge with cat Earl Grey being the company’s chief executive and other cats holding titles such as chief culinary officer and chief fashion officer.
“Earl wanted to stress that he’s the visionary behind Chats de Thé and we’re merely his management team,” Sanchez and Chen joked in an email.
