Cat cafés are now passé. The new place to go to is the owl bar Annie The Owl.
A London pop-up bar with real barn owls will open for a week from March 19-25 in an undisclosed Soho location.
Along with the headliner owl, Annie, there will also be five other barn owls flying around in the bar at all times named Cinders, Darwin, Hootie, Ruby and Winston — Harry Potter’s Hedwig won’t be in the mix.
“I’m half Japanese and have visited an owl café in Tokyo and really enjoyed it,” Seb, the man behind the pop-up, told Londonist. “I thought that it would be really cool to bring one to London.”
Owl bars are not the first exotic idea to come out of Japan. Cat Cafés, which are abundant in Japan, have also inspired people in other countries to open up look-alikes in cities like London, Paris and New York.
Seb and his business crew partnered with The Barn Owl Centre — an organization dedicated to the welfare of owls — and a new start-up marketing app Locappy to run the pop-up. Seb said that all profits will go to the owl charity.
The owls have been trained to be around people and petted. They will also be supervised by professional falconers at all times.
Some of the drink options will have clever names such as “Annie Collins,” “Owl-Presso Martini” and “The Hoot.”
Tickets to get in will cost 20 pounds — roughly $30 — and the bar hours will coincide with the bird’s nocturnal habits: from 8:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Twitter: @MrAlexAlba
