Inside the world's cutest café

LATTES AND LAP RODENTS

- KYLE MELNICK

THE cafe has the traditional staples - coffee, muffins, cookies, bottled water and packaged chips.

But the lobby is also full of small and large stuffed capybaras, paintings of capybaras, and mugs and T-shirts featuring the social, round-eared animals. When customers walk around a corner to a small room, they finally meet the stars: live capybaras who like to hang out with humans.

The Capybara Café in St Augustine, Florida, claims to be the first of its kind in the UA, allowing customers to feed, pet and snuggle the world's largest rodents, which are native to South America.

The idea for the cafe stemmed from an animal rescue and rehabilitation centre needing money to remain open. Stephanie Angel, the cafe's owner, said she was surprised at how popular the cafe became after it opened in October; she said she gets about 100 customers per day.

"You work in any other field, you always have unhappy customers and complaints," said Angel. "We generally don't have any of that. If anything, our complaints are, 'Man I wish I had more time with the capybaras.'"

The cafe is owned by Noah's Ark Sanctuary, which houses more than 100 animals.