The UK’s first-ever cat café is at risk of closing

To those of us who have been knocking around east London since the early 2010s, the name Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium evokes memories of east London at the height of hipsterdom, back when tourists queued up for a table at the Cereal Killer Café, and flamboyantly dressed art school kids partied late into the night at Plastic People and the Joiner’s Arms.

But while other hipster hotspots have fallen by the wayside, the UK’s oldest and most famous cat café has survived a decade of enormous upheaval in this particular corner of east London. 

Taking inspiration from the pet cafés found across Japan, Lady Dinah’s opened in Bethnal Green in 2014 after a successful crowdfunding campaign, and has been serving a loyal, kitty-loving customer base ever since, while also helping to rehouse dozens of rescue cats thanks to its policy of taking on kitties that have been turned away by shelters, and making them available for adoption by customers.

It’s no surprise, then, that current owner Lauren Pears’ recent announcement that she planned to close the business at the end of June after failing to find a buyer received dozens of comments from customers sad to see the end of a much-loved London spot. 

But there is hope for Lady Dinah’s yet. Café manager Freyja Westwood has launched a crowdfunding campaign to purchase the café and keep it open, and has already had an excellent response from the spot’s many fans, raising just over half of the £50,000 goal in the first week. 

As Freyja says in a campaign video for the crowd funder, ‘Lady Dinah’s really holds a special place in a lot of people’s hearts, and for a lot of different reasons. Some people visit because they can’t have a cat of their own, some people visit to help them with the loss of their own cat, and some people visit us as a way to escape their day to day life. Lady Dinah’s will be a real loss for a lot of people.’

Fans of the east London venue can do their bit to keep it open by donating to the crowd funder here. We’ve got our paws crossed that it’s a success!

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