Japanese Cafe Lets You Eat With Stuffed Animals

A Cat Cafe (exactly what it sounds like) has made its way to New York City, but folks in Japan believe in a different way to dine with animals.

Introducing Japan's Moomin Cafe, which seats those who are dining alone with large stuffed animals to keep them company.

Moomin Cafe is a theme restaurant, based on a series of Finnish picture books about a family of hippopotamus-like creatures.

Twitter user Haru recently visited paid the restaurant's Tokyo Dome City LaQua branch a visit.

FirstWeFeast reports,

[Haru] bravely stepped inside, took a seat, and placed her order. But as she was sitting by herself, waiting for her food to come, she was approached by one of the staff, who came over to inform Haru there was someone who'd like to sit with her, if she didn't mind.

It turned out the server was making the request on behalf of The Snork Maiden, the girlfriend of Moomin's main character, Moomintroll. "The waitress had such a big smile on her face, I couldn't say no," Haru recalls, embarrassedly [sic]. "But it was also so cute!"

Then Haru snapped this photo of her new "date":

The entire restaurant lives up to its theme, from the patrons:

To the food:

Lots of users on Instagram have been uploading photos of their Moomin Cafe experiences:

Everyone looks like they're having fun: