Located near Sookmyung Womens University at 63-20 Cheongpadong 2(i)-ga, Yongsan-gu in Seoul is a small cafe with two raccoons. Animal cafes aren’t anything new to Seoul. You can have a drink and try to play with cats or sit and eat cake with a small dog on your lap at many little cafes throughout Korea. But raccoons are a little new.
Growing up in the rural Indiana meant I’ve gotten my fair share of wild animal cuddles. Usually due to my family rescuing animals that neighbors were going to kill and nursing them until they could better fend for themselves. From skunks to raccoons.
Raccoons aren’t native to South Korea so I’m not sure how or why they’ve ended up at a cafe in Seoul, but it has brought the cafe a decent amount of customers. When I went I was surprised that most of the crowd were foreigners.
At Blind Alley after you purchase something you can go visit the animals who are in a separate room. They warn not to have anything in your pockets and to not touch them since they may bite. When I visited a pale raccoon was active, but mostly super itchy and spent the entire 20 minutes I visited biting and scratching itself. The other was hidden away napping. Since there are only two raccoons the crowd to see them can be a little intimidating and after more people showed up it was pretty clear that the raccoon had gotten scared. I have no clue about how they are cared for or even if they’re healthy. It wasn’t anything like when I’ve visited cat cafes or dog cafes where the animals seem happy to see humans and also seem to be doing well by having plenty of food and water and space to hide from prying hands. But I was also there for a short time so can’t say if they were being treated poorly or well at all. While I was there I ordered a strawberry banana smoothie which was good but they were just vastly understaffed so it took a while to get it.
