Sip on a latte or some peppermint tea, scarf down a sweet treat, people watch, do some work on your laptop, sketch a fellow patron.
These are things people typically do when they frequent a café, right? Thanks to the growing surge of animal cafés, you can now add petting and playing with an animal to that list.
Japan dominates the animal café market, but they exist in other countries like Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and the UK, to name a few. And the U.S. recently opened its first dog café in Los Angeles.
Most cafés are home to one type of animal in particular, but others house a range of different animals. Part petting zoo, part social gathering, these cafés are the perfect hang-out spot for animal lovers.
Many of them came into existence during the ’90s because property owners did not allow pets.
For a small fee, these cafés will give you the experience of bonding with creatures you don’t often get to see in your daily life. Here are some of the animals you can encounter at various cafés throughout the world.
Nneka Samuel