Junko Kimura/Getty Images"I can has cheezburger?" No, cute little kitty, you can't. But you can hang out at this cat café!
London's first cat café, Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium, is set to open soon and now officially has a location: In the heart of Shoreditch in East London (152-154 Bethnal Green Road, E2 6DG, if you want an address).
Lauren Pears, the brains behind Lady Dinah's, raised over £100k through crowdfunding earlier this year and now that they have secured a permit to start building, the café is one step closer to being a reality.
Pears' dream is for Londoners to "kick back and relax with a cup of tea and spend time in the soothing company of our purring feline friends" for the low, low price of a fiver (or 3 pounds per visit if you buy a 9 Lives Card).
The next step (besides building the café) is finding the cats to fill the cat café!
Lady Dinah's will be working with the Mayhew Animal Home to rescue kittens for the luxurious Victorian café, where they "will have free choice...to stay indoors with patrons, or relax outside for some time-out in their private two-story, cats-only garden." (#VIKittens only)
The opening is planned for October, after a period of time in which the kittens will be able to become acclimated to the café and social with each other. Oh, and if you're looking for a job, they'll be hiring soon. Follow the café's progress here.
The first cat café opened in Taiwan in 1998 and their popularity spread to Japan where one opened in Osaka in 2004. Since then, over 100 cat cafés have popped up in Japan, with 50 in Tokyo alone (also, they have rabbit cafés)!
And cat cafés have gone global:
There's one in Korea and one in Vienna, Austria.
There's two in Hungary, one in Germany and one in Devon, England (the U.K.'s first).
And none for the U.S.
In semi-unrelated news, which is actually related in so much as it's about an adorable cat (a big cat, but a cat none the less) and because Katy Perry loves cat cafés (she visited one in Tokyo in her Part of Me documentary), here is the most adorable cover of "Roar" you will ever see.
Lady Katy Perry's Cheetah Café Emporium, opening soon in California, please.