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People like coffee and people love cats so together they make the paws that refresh at
a London cat cafe that is so popular it's booked out until June. Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium
on the fringe of London's financial district is cashing in on an idea first popularised
in Japan to allow stressed-out workers to wind down by stroking a cat while sipping
a cappuccino or latte - or tea, if you prefer. "The idea is you can come have a peaceful
lunch or high tea and be surrounded by cats. If you're lucky one of them will fall asleep
on your lap," said Anna Kogan, an investment banker who is co-owner of Dinah's along with
Australian Lauren Pears. Part-financed by a crowdfunding campaign which raised more
than 109,000 pounds ($181,100) in less than two months, the cafe, which opened its doors
on March 1, is already a runaway success. Cat lovers stormed the cafe's online booking
system within hours of its launch, making more than 3,000 bookings and causing the system
to temporarily crash. It is fully booked until the end of June."I thought that it would be
really really cool to just hang out with loads and loads of cats," said recent patron Christy
McCormick. "They're really fluffy and cute and ... I really like cats. They're great,"
McCormick said of the cafe's 11 cats, donated by people leaving the country or unable to
care for them. Britons share more than 3.8 million online photos and videos of cats every
day, compared to just 1.4 million selfies, and more than 350,000 cat owners have a social
network account set up for their cats, according to mobile network provider Three. The vintage-decorated
cafe charges customers 5 pounds ($8.30) to enter and has a two-hour turnaround time for
patrons. Kogan said customers came from all walks of life, including bankers, designers
and students, and the cafe aims to adopt more cats if it gets the go-ahead from the local
council. Nor does the animal cafe craze stop with cats. The same area of London is set
to get its own dog cafe, Happiness of Hounds, later this year. Hundreds of Parisians queued
last year for the opening of a "Cafe des Chats", which is home to a dozen animals the owners
encourage customers to stroke, claiming the vibration produced by purring can relieve
arthritis and rheumatism.