Rescue kitten lounge set to open Saturday at Stanford mall

Mini Cat Town, a rescue kitten nonprofit, will be celebrating the grand opening of its fifth adoption center in the Stanford Shopping Center on Saturday, June 22.

The nonprofit organization was founded in 2015 by sisters Thi, Thoa and Tram Bui, who were originally running it out of their home. The trio opened their first location in the Eastridge Center in San Jose in 2019.

The center offers a location for anyone to visit and see the kittens, in the hopes that they will be adopted. The Palo Alto location will open with 46 kittens, all of which are available to adopt. 

The sisters’ overall goal is to fix the “dire situation that is kitten season,” Thoa Bui said. Kitten season happens during warmer months when cats start having lots of babies, leading to a heavy influx of orphaned kittens in shelters. Bui said that local shelters in San Jose can take in around 5,000 kittens during this time.

The three sisters have been helping kittens since they were children, when they would feed and care for stray cats in their neighborhood, which they said was overrun with cats who didn’t have a home. 

Mini Cat Town currently has over 200 kittens in its care, both in the foster system and in its five centers. Bui said the number of kittens they care for never drops, as any kitten that gets adopted opens a spot for a new one.

Once kittens in their care reach two pounds, they are spayed, neutered and given age-appropriate vaccines. Then they are free to come to the adoption floor, like the one opening in the Stanford Shopping Center. 

“They get to have the visibility of people coming in and playing with them,” Bui said. “And if somebody falls in love with the cat, they can just apply to adopt.”

Anyone who wants to adopt a cat can apply on the Mini Cat Town website. Once they apply, they will go to an adoption meeting before being able to adopt a kitten.

The organization also offers foster care for kittens, which allows families to sign up and care for kittens for a few weeks. Mini Cat Town provides families with all the supplies and medical care they need to be successful, Bui said. Foster families also get first priority to adopt the kittens if they want.

The Stanford Shopping Center location will open its doors at noon on Saturday, and admission is on a walk-in basis that is subject to a waitlist. All locations are open daily for both admission and adoption. You can also donate on the Mini Cat Town website.