Wallingford Cat Cafe One Of Most-Photographed In U.S.

SEATTLE, WA - The cats at Wallingford's Seattle Meowtropolitan cat cafe are famous, at least on the internet. That's according to Yelp, which named the cafe the No. 3 most-photographed cat cafe in the U.S.

There are close to 800 photos of Meowtropolitan's kitties on the cafe's Yelp page. That number will likely grow on Monday - that's because it's National Cat Day.

Here's an excerpt form Yelp's blog post about the nation's most-photographed cat cafes:

One of the world's first cat cafes opened back in 1998 in Taipei, Taiwan. Loosely translated as “Kitten Garden,” this cafe started as a way for folks to unwind after a long day, but quickly evolved into a major tourist spot. In the mid-2000s cat cafes began to open in Japan, followed closely by openings in Europe and the U.S.

The first cat cafe in America was introduced as a sponsored pop-up cafe in New York City in April of 2014. While this pop-up cafe first introduced the idea to the U.S. the trend was quickly popularized and Oakland's Cat Town became the country's first permanent cat cafe in October of the same year. Since then, cat cafes have been opened in Austin, Seattle and many more cities.

Interestingly enough, regardless of what people are writing in their cat cafe reviews on Yelp, they tend to give a rating of 4 and 5 stars. And in the minds of consumers, “cats” are definitely the bigger pull than the “cafe” aspect. Out of the most common phrases in cat cafe reviews, “cafe” didn’t show up until the 19th phrase. “Tea” and “coffee” didn’t even crack the top 100.

Image courtesy Yelp