Coffee and a cuddle, please
A puppy café has opened in New York. This prompted Marjan Ippel to look for more cafés that use (pet) animals as customer magnets. Petting animals and drinking coffee is the perfect drink-and-do combination.
It all started a few years ago in Tokyo. A city where homes are so small that many residents do not even have room for a pet. Pretty inconvenient in an environment where loneliness is so widespread that, for many people, contact with a pet is the only moment of contact in a day. Or could have been, if they had had one. But they don’t, because of the lack of space. That is why the world’s very first Cat Café opened a few years ago.
Fluffy cats selected for their sweet and sociable nature hang around in baskets and on climbing structures. While enjoying a flat white, visitors can pet them to their heart’s content and take them on their laps. Petting animals is said to produce endorphins in the brain, making every guest leave the place a little happier than when they arrived. Cat Cafés can now be found all over the world, from Beijing to Paris. But it hasn’t stopped with cats.
Kopjes – Amsterdam
Amsterdam’s cat café is aptly called Kopjes, playing on the word’s double meaning. You can drink endless cups of coffee or tea there, while the resident cats give you cuddles.
Boris & Horton – New York
New York’s very first puppy café, Boris & Horton, revolves around the two dogs who lent their names to the café: a pit bull mix and a Chihuahua-like dog. The difference from other animal cafés is that, although this is the hangout for these two dogs, it is primarily one of the rare hospitality venues where guests are explicitly encouraged to bring their dogs inside. The underlying idea is that you simply make contact with other people more easily through your dog. And otherwise, you can just buy a cute neckerchief for your doggie.
Petting animals and drinking coffee is the perfect drink-and-do combination.
Ms. Bunny Cafe – Tokyo
The hedgehog café Harry Hedgehog used to be downstairs. And if you were more into soft rabbit fur than spikes, you had to go upstairs to Ms. Bunny. The two cafés are now integrated. You can pet a rabbit there, take it for a walk on a leash in the Roppongi neighborhood where the café is located, or pay for it and take it home in your shopping bag.
Thanks Nature Cafe – Seoul
The café’s name doesn’t reveal that inside it is a chic ‘sheep pen’, where guests can hold an iced latte in one hand while happily running their other hand through soft, warm sheep’s wool. There are also lambs from time to time. But not on the menu!
Giraffe Manor – Nairobi
A boutique hotel in the Kenyan jungle with a long safari history and a group of regulars with even longer necks: so-called Rothschild giraffes. If you are having breakfast in this historic ‘Out of Africa’ property, one of the long-necked guests may suddenly stick its head through the window in the hope of joining you for breakfast.
