Are you the type that’s uncomfortable dining out along? If so the Moomin House Cafe in Tokyo can help.

The cafe seats lone customers with stuffed animals called Moomins so they won’t have to sit and dine alone. (Stuffed animals are also brought to groups so they can get a turn sitting with them.) I don’t know, if you ask me, I’d guess that dining with a stuffed animal is much more awkward than dining alone!

According to the CNN article, “The cafe has seen a surge in visitors since its  “anti-loneliness”concept went viral.”

So what exactly are Moomins? From Wikipedia:

Moomins are are the central characters in a series of books, and a comic strip by Swedish-speaking Finnish illustrator and writer Tove Jansson. They are a family of white, roundish fairy tale characters with large snouts that make them resemble hippos.

Along with being popular in Finland (they even have a theme park), Moomins are also extremely popular in Japan. A theme park is planned to open there next year.

There are three locations of the Moomin House Cafe in Tokyo. To respect Moomin culture, bread is made from Finnish rye and other foods are made in the shape of them.

As weird and creepy as this sounds, I wish I had known about the Moomin House Cafe last year when we were in Japan. I think Lucas would’ve gotten a kick out of this!

Find out more about the Moomin House Cafe in the CNN article HERE.

While on the topic of stuffed animals, did you know that you can book a package trip for your stuffed animal to Japan?