Cat lovers in London will soon have their own cat cafe. Entrepreneur Lauren Pears, 30 years old, was able to raise more than $151,000 through project-funding website Indiegogo. She is currently looking for space and will have the cafe opened up in a few months. The cafe idea is based on the popular Japanese cat cafe.
I wonder if the coffees are served up like this? Photo via CoffeeStencil.com
Lauren’s already found 10-15 cats from the animal shelter to staff the cafe. She’s also received 300 prospective job applicants and more are coming in each day. She plans to charge about $7 per hour for customers to enjoy coffee in the company of cats. Or in the company of other cat lovers.
Lauren will have a volunteer program so people who can’t afford the cover charge can actually come in overnight and look after the cats. For hygienic reasons, the cats are to be kept out of the kitchen.
Vienna, Austria also had their first cat cafe open up last year and it seems to be a hit among locals and tourists. Cafe Neko (”neko” means cat in Japanese). The cafe was opened by Vienna resident Takako Ishimitsu, a 47-year-old woman originally from Nagoya, Japan, who moved to Vienna some 20 years ago.
If there was a cat cafe near where I lived, I would definitely check it out. Although I already have enough cats in my life, I wouldn’t mind having coffee with a few new cats.
BBC News Report on Youtube here - Vienna cat cafe with strict no dog policy.
