Our Experience Visiting Two Cat Cafés in Harajuku, Tokyo

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My kids and I are huge cat lovers. My kids were born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan (where the world’s first cat café started!) and we’ve visited most of the cat cafés in Taipei.

We’ve also been to a cat village in Taiwan, the cat temple in Tokyo, Tashirojima Cat Island in Japan, and met tons of cats in Istanbul, Turkey. In other words, we will travel for cats!

So, on our recent three day visit to Tokyo, we had to try at least a couple cat cafés. There are well over a dozen in the city, but we went straight to Harajuku, where there are several cat cafés (and other animal cafés) all close together.

Below I’ll share our experience visiting two different cafes, plus a hedgehog cafe we also tried.

Table of Contents

Harajuku: Tokyo’s Animal Café Hot Spot

Narrow Takeshita Street in Harajuku, Tokyo, with 711 on the left side, some cool looking shops on the right side, and lots of pedestrians — Harajuku’s Takeshita Street

Harajuku is a neighborhood within Shibuya, one of the most popular and well-known wards of Tokyo. Harajuku’s Takeshita Street has long been known as the subculture and street fashion capital of Japan.

Teens adorned in lolita, visual kei, and cosplay gear hang out on the street and near the huge torii gate nearby, which frames a path through an expansive forest to Meiji Jingu, one of the holiest Shinto shrines in the city.

Large sign for Hrajuku Mame Shiba Inu Cafe, with some cute Shiba Inus on it — Mame Shiba on Takeshita Street

Takeshita Street is also a magnet for tourists. For many years now, animal cafés have also been one of the biggest draws to the area, for locals and tourists alike.

Cat cafés remain the most common, but we also saw (or read about in our research before coming) the following:

Harajuku Mame Shiba Café (a Shiba Inu café)
Mipig Café (a piglet café)
Harajuku Kawaii Land Kyun Kyun (a hedgehog and rodent café, see the end of this article)
Tokyo Snake Center (snake café)
Owl Village (owl café)
and several others.

Are These Cafés Worth Visiting?

A young girl right beside a gray cat and petting its face — My daughter in a Harajuku cat cafe

To be honest, a lot of these animal cafés look and feel like money grabs. They aren’t cheap, and the time you get is quite limited. Usually you pay for a short time slot, like 30 minutes, and if you go over it, you pay more.

The line for some (like the Shiba Inu café) is crazy long. Last but not least, there are ethical considerations to visiting these kinds of animal attractions. This article goes into the reasons you may not want to visit one. It focuses on a hedgehog café but the info could apply to any of them.

A young girl kneeling down to pet a white cat that's lying sideways on a low table — Getting head scratchies

I should also point out that the word “café” is used loosely for many of these. Some don’t even have drinks (like the hedgehog café we went to), so the word “petting zoo” would be more appropriate.

And at others, the drink is incidental. Really you are paying for the animals. At the first cat café we visited in Harajuku, the drink came from a vending machine.

Our First Cat Café in Harajuku

A white cat on a cupboard inside a cat cafe with some small ads in front of it and window behind it — Cat Cafe Mocha Harajuku

Before our trip, I had researched some of the cat cafés in Tokyo and Harajuku specifically. Cat Café Mocha Harajuku (official site) stood out as one of the nicer looking ones, so it was at the top of our list.

Cat Café Mocha is a chain with a few locations in Tokyo (and recently they opened one in Taipei, too!) The Harajuku location (here) is not on Takeshita Street, but a few blocks away from it.

It is on the 4^th floor of a building right outside Harajuku Station and directly across from the big torii and path to Meijin Jingu Shrine. In other words, the location is super convenient.

A young boy squatting beside a bookshelf with a furry cat on the bottom shelf — My son with one of the cats

From the reviews, we knew that they do a mass cat feeding every day at 10:30 AM, so we arrived there shortly after the 10:00 AM opening time.

We also knew that they charge per 30 minutes (￥1080 on weekdays for kids or adults, plus 200 for every 10 minutes after), so we also timed it so that we could catch the mass feeding within our 30 minutes. If you do the same, just factor in the fact that there’s usually a bit of a line to get in, so try to get there right at 10 or even a little before.

After paying, we received tokens for getting a drink each from the vending machine. We also each got a locker to put our shoes and personal possessions.

A woman holding a cat teaser up to a cat that's sitting on a basked hanging from the ceiling in a cat cafe — My wife playing with one of the cats

Then it was on to the kitty room!

The large main room was well lit, with large windows at the front where some cats basked in the sun. In the middle, there was a tall wooden tree with little platforms for cats, and from the ceiling hung multiple “cat lamps”, or hanging baskets that the cats could rest in.

The room had multiple nooks and crannies for the cats to hide in of they wanted to. There were also Gashapon machines where my kids bought treats to feed the cats.

A young girl is opening a pack of cat treats and a white cat is sitting there waiting for one — Treats from one of the machines inside

A row of different colored cats eating from bowls on the floor in a cat cafe — Mass feeding time

A row of cats with their faces buried in metal feeding bowls on the floor in a cat cafe — Munch, munch, munch

A row of cats sitting at their metal feeding bowls on the ground, but all of them are looking to the side at something — Something distracted them all at once…

Our time playing with and petting the cats flew by. Before we knew it, it was time for the mass feeding. The cats clearly knew what was coming, as they gathered around the tree and became feistier. There was a lot of meowing and even a hiss or two.

All the guests gathered around to watch as the staff placed several metal bowls in a line then added the food all at once.

And then there was a whole lot of munching. And lots of photos and “oohs!” and “awws!” from the spectators. And just like that, our first Japanese cat café experience was done!

Our Second Cat Café in Harajuku

A gray cat sleeping in a basket in front of a window, with a young girl out of focus smiling and sitting on the same ledge in the background — My daughter in our second cat cafe

My kids could always spend more time with cats. My kids even claim to have a special understanding of or ability to communicate with cats, and cats always seem to love them.

Anyways, our second cat café experience in Harajuku wasn’t planned. My wife actually wanted to go to the Shiba Inu café on Takeshita Street, as she is the sole dog lover in our family. And only my son was old enough to get in with her (they have a minimum age of 9, and my daughter was 8 at the time).

So, while my wife and son waited in the long line for Mame Shiba, my daughter and I decided to try another cat café.

Close up of a poofie cat's face as it hides behind a circular scratching pad — One of several cuties in the next cat cafe

Right across the street from Mame Shiba and up a few floors, Cat Cafe Moff Cute Cube Harajuku (here, see official site) was one I hadn’t found in my research before the trip.

I assume it’s a newer one, as it doesn’t have any reviews, but that also meant it wasn’t busy.

The drill was very similar to Cat Café Mocha. We paid ￥900 for 30 minutes (again same price for kids or adults), and 250 is charged per 10 minutes after that. Then we put our shoes in a locker and entered.

Close up of a gray cat with Nick Kembel right behind it and petting it — Me with one of the cats

At Cat Cafe Moff Cute Cube Harajuku, the drinks were nicer but they were not included in the entry fee. There’s a minimum one drink per person and we had to pay separately for them. This doubled our visiting cost and made it twice as expensive (per person) compared to Cat Café Mocha.

On the plus side, we got in right away and had the place almost entirely to ourselves. This café also had lots of windows, making it nice and bright inside.

A young girl sitting cross-legged in a private wooden cubicle in a cat cafe, with a green-blue ice drink, and an orange cat sitting beside her pawing at an ice cube — The cat liked playing with an ice cube

It was very clean and the cats had tons of space (more than at Cat Café Mocha), including many cozy baskets, platforms, hiding spots, and so on.

This cat café also had a cute wall with photos and names of all the cats inside – we counted 25 of them.

There were also some wooden cubicles where we could sit in privacy, and some cats decided to join us. One of them had a lot of fun chasing an ice cube from my daughter’s drink around the cubicle (making us both laugh a lot), until a staff member told us not to do that…

25 photos of cats in wooden frames on the wall inside a cat cafe — The wall of cats

Two rows of many cats on the floor, all eating out of metal bowls — Another mass feeding

Two rows of cats eating from metal bowls, with the closest one sitting upright and looking down at its bowl — More munches

And then we got to see another mass cat feeding – we had no idea about the timing, so we were just lucky to catch this one. By that point, there were more guests inside. Just like the previous one, the cats were all fed at the same time, in two long rows.

The munching sounds of this one were especially loud and cute!

Several cats under some chairs in a cat cafe — Satisfied after their meal

Portrait of a siamese cat sitting on a table in a cat cafe — So regal.

Portrait of a short haired cat with big eyes and ears in a cat cafe — Another nice lil’ guy

And Finally, a Hedgehog Café

A very cute staircase going down to B1, painted all in baby pink, with cute images of rodents on the sides — Entrance to the hedgehog cafe

Once our time in this cat café was done, we found out that my wife and son had only just got into the Shiba Inu café, so we had more time to kill.

We decided to try Harajuku Kawaii Land Kyun Kyun (here, see official site), the hedgehog and rodent café we had noticed just around the corner.

This one had a really cute pink entrance staircase down to the lower floor. When we entered, there were no other guests inside.

A young girl wearing gloves and holding a hedgehog inside a pink and pastel colored room — My daughter with one of the hedgehogs

After paying a pretty steep ￥2300 (adult) and ￥1200 (child), the staff introduced us to the animals in the fairly small room, which included hedgehogs, hamsters, chinchillas, guinea pigs, and leopard geckos.

We could hold or feed any of them but had to wear special gloves to do so. I thought the hedgehogs were the coolest, but my daughter liked the hamsters the most (she’s never had a rodent pet before).

A young girl wearing pink gloves and holding a white hamster inside a harajuku animal cafe — And with a hamster

Overall, we succeeded in passing some time, and it was cute. But I don’t really think it was worth the money (unless you have kids who really love these animals) and I wouldn’t go back again if I had the choice.

Overall, while we did really enjoy our cat café visits in Tokyo, our experience visiting Tashirojima Cat Island a few days later was even better.

You may also read about our subsequent road trip across Hokkaido and the reasons our kids loved it!