Helkatti Cat Cafe — Restaurant in Helsinki sub-region

I've given this place a few chances over the years but it never gets better. I love cats but I always regret going. If you understand cats and can read their body language, love them and have experience of owning them, don't go to this café. It's an anxiety inducing experience since most visitors ignore the cats' boundaries completely.

Most visitors care far more about getting to pet the cats than they do about whether the cat wants to be pet or not. As a result the place is full of cats that don't care about the strangers around them (understandable) and don't approach them, and people who are petting cats whether the cats like it or not. It's like the cats have just accepted their fate and tolerate/ignore the fact that they're being touched against their will by strangers every day.

Service takes incredibly long, I waited for 30mins. The waiter was incredibly slow, quiet and awkward and not on top of her tasks. And the food.... It really is bad. I ordered a small piece of cake and it cost 10 euros, and had clearly just been microwaved from the freezer, as it was both chewy and dry/rock hard in different spots. The store-bought soy ice cream didn't make it better. My advice is: go somewhere else, anywhere else, with quality food for much less money. A tea, a small piece of bad cake + 5e fee ended up costing me 20 euros in total.

There's also no peace when eating/drinking at your table if there's any cats around it at all, as hard as the cats try to ignore the people harassing them. People will walk in and out of normal personal space to shove themselves closer to the cats, and then you're sitting there drinking tea with your face inches away from someone's butt. Somehow this place makes people forget normal manners and politeness, towards both people and cats.

Not worth the money. Just makes me hope the cats had proper homes, their lives seem exhausting...

TLDR: Pay 5 euros to stare at sleeping cats and question your life choices.

As a child I loved visiting my Aunt because she usually had 7 or 8 rescue cats running around her apartment. It was a little cat paradise and at least 1 or 2 of them offered entertainment at any given moment. She died abruptly of cancer last year and I thought maybe this place might be something similar to that feline paradise of my childhood.

It was not. At all.

The moment we entered I immediately noticed the complete lack of interaction between the customers and the cats.

3 of the 4 cats I saw there were sleeping next to the street side window ( the fourth sleeping near the ceiling) while about half of the current customers were awkwardly and silently attempting to will the cats awake by aggresively staring at them. The rule being that sleeping cats must not be disturbed and of course, because they're cats and it was day time THEY WERE ALL SLEEPING.

We moved on into the cafe and took a seat at a table. As we looked through the menu I noticed other tabled customers anxiously glancing towards the cats to see if anything had changed (It never did). Another thing we noticed is that the sparse menu consists of only filtered coffee and snacks with cringe inducing cat themed names. No expresso at a Kahvila in Helsinki. What the f*?

Thinking there's no going back now we reluctantly decided to order something. 5 minutes pass and no staff has made an appearance since we arrived. 10 minutes pass still no staff leading to one of the staring customers becoming inboldenned and cautiously begins petting one of the sleeping cats as if it might be wired with an alarm. 15 minutes pass still no staff and we finally decide to toss all pretence of respect for this place and unbolt the door to make our escape. Only staff are allowed to open the door. But we did and we never...

Just gonna start by saying the only part of this whole experience that made it somewhat passable was the adorable cats that were friendly and ready for a cuddle.

The rest? The term "a joke" isn't even justifiable. We were greeted by a male server whose demenour changed as soon as he realised we are not locals but tourists. Cold, rude, barely looking us in the eye - as if we were some burden. Honestly was going to ask if we had done anything wrong at that point, but decided to stay quiet. After being led to a table in a secluded corner of the shop (please note the main dining area was almost completely empty) were told we would get some insight about the café - insight which of course, was never given. Instead two menus were just practically thrown at us and a very long time later, just when we were about to give up and leave, our order was taken. We ordered two hot chocolates which although not bad in taste, were extremely cold. Could tell they had been ready for an impressive amount of time before being silently handed to us. We weren't even provided with teaspoons and as it had been sitting out for a long time, all the chocolate that had sunk to the bottom went to waste as we couldn't even stir it. Not at all worth the €5.70 each we paid for this sad excuse of beverage. Couldn't help but notice that on the other hand, locals were receiving a pristine service.

Would I recommend? Only if you have time and money to waste. Would I return? Not even if you paid me to. And to the bloke who served us, I suggest you teach yourself some basic etiquette, or at least learn to show some slight respect towards your customers. Extremely...