Want a Cat With That? More Cute Feline Cafe Photos

Self-described “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Gamer” Frank Yu (@FrankYu) came to Beijing in 2004 “for the duck” and “stayed for the chuan’r.” In addition to being co-founder and CEO of Kwestr , Beijing tech maven Frank is also an avid Instagrammer (follow him at mkultra00 – with two zeroes at the end) and co-organizer of the Instagramers Beijing group.

Normally, when "cats" and "Beijing" are mentioned in the same sentence, it's in reference to Beijing's swelling stray population. Last year, we reported an article from theatlanticcities.com that said the number of feral felines was somewhere between 500,000 and 5 million. That's certainly no shortage of cute kittens about for adoring (or trapping), but I couldn't resist sharing a few special cats from a very special place.

I dub it one of the most unusual venues in Beijing: the Cats 44 Cafe on Beiluoguxiang, located around the corner from Spring Cameras. Unlike Japan, where cat cafes can run to USD 10-20 an hour, this one simply costs the price of a cup of coffee or a plate of dessert that's, not surprisingly, decorated with cat faces.

The cafe's 10 to 15 cats are very relaxed and comfortable with humans. Some are rescued animals and later get adopted by patrons after undergoing a stringent selection process by the cafe staff.

The venue itself is an air conditioned, wi-fi-enabled, cozy cafe with a small goldfish pond that houses a turtle who constantly tantalizes the cats. Don't bring any work that's too terribly important though because, as you might have noticed, it's a cafe full of distractions.

For more catty photos by Frank Yu, click here.