Nine Lives Cafe & Cat Lounge

Nine Lives opened on Shelby Street in Fountain Square in 2017, founded by owners who had travelled in Asia and come home wanting Indiana to have a cat café. It was the first in the state. Kelley Niiyama — a former classical musician who had worked at the café for about a year — bought it with her husband Hidetaka in March 2020, eight days before COVID-19 forced the doors shut, which is not the start anyone would choose. They kept it. Six years on it is one of the more durable independent rooms in Fountain Square, and the cat side has been formalised into IndyAdopts, the nonprofit the Niiyamas founded in 2021 to handle adoptions and, alongside them, to promote Japanese culture. The café's own count puts it at more than 1,600 cats rehomed.

The café half is the reason it belongs in an alcohol-free guide rather than only a pet one. Nothing on the menu contains alcohol, the espresso program is taken seriously, and the drinks are named and sized with some wit — a 12oz is a "kitten", a 16oz is a "cat", and the house Café Meow is a honey and cinnamon latte that regulars order by name. The chai and the matcha hold up, and the food is local: pastries from the vegan bakery Sea Salt & Cinnamon, with gluten-free options. The cat lounge is separate from the café floor and works on reservations, with walk-ins taken when there is room; the age policy steps up through the day, all ages before 1pm, 13 and over until 5pm, and 18-plus in the evening. Friday and Saturday it stays open until 7pm, which makes it one of the few genuinely alcohol-free evening rooms in the city since Memento Zero Proof closed. Two practical points. The café side can be used without booking the lounge — you can come in, order a Café Meow and sit, and plenty of people do, particularly students from the University of Indianapolis, who have written about using it as a place to decompress during exams. And Fountain Square is the single best neighbourhood in the city for an alcohol-free evening: The Inferno Room, with the metro's most developed zero-proof tiki list, is three blocks away on Virginia Avenue, and Harmony Tea Shoppe is on the same stretch. Closed Wednesdays, which catches people out.