We went to Cambridge’s first pop up dachshund cafe and it was love at first sight!
Hundreds of dachshunds descended on Revolution for the city’s first ‘pup-up’ cafe.
Sausage dogs chasing each other, playing in ball pits and lapping up ‘puppuccinos’: these were just some of the adorable sights at Cambridge’s first ever ‘Pup Up Cafe’.
On Sunday, February 27, more than a hundred dachshunds and their loving owners descended on Revolution Cambridge at Downing Place for the event.
There, the dogs played together and enjoyed tasty treats while their humans soaked up the party atmosphere and opportunity to socialise with other dog-lovers.
The folks at Pup Up Cafe, which organises the events, don’t provide the dogs – they’re brought along by their owners – but they do provide activities and refreshments and invite local businesses to set up doggy-themed stalls.
Locals bring along their four-legged friends or, for a slightly higher ticket price, come along without one to absorb the puppy love.
Pup Up Cafe themes their events around different breeds: Sunday’s cafe was for dachshunds, but there also cafes for pugs, Frenchies, poodles and doodles.
So don’t worry too much if you missed it this time around, because there’s a pug cafe and a Frenchie cafe hosted by Pup Up Cafe at Revolution in Cambridge on Sunday, June 19. Organisers have also assured us that there’ll be a dachshund cafe again in future.
The dogs appeared to love every second of Sunday’s cafe, relishing the attention lavished on them and posing for photos at the stations set up by organisers.
Otis, 10, and Eric, 9, thoroughly enjoyed the event with their dog Slinky – probably named after the sausage dog in Toy Story – describing the dogs around them as “very cute”.
Slinky, meanwhile was “really happy” as he “enjoys running around and playing with other dogs”, according to the children’s mum.
Anna had fun too, travelling from Bury St Edmunds to Cambridge to let the brilliantly-named Chipolata roam free with the other dogs.
“He’s desperate to go and play with them,” she said as Chipolata skipped off to join the fray.
Kelly – whose 11-month-old puppy Florence looked very dapper at the cafe with a pink bow around her neck – summarised it nicely: “she’s having fun and I’m having fun”.
Lucy, from Cambridge, meanwhile, set up a Lucy & Lola stall at the event (Lola is the name of her dachshund).
“We do custom pet embroidery,” she explained. “We take a photo and I draw a design from it and then we embroider it. We’re totally organic and recycled.
“During lockdown, I bought an iPad to teach myself how to do portraits and then I started doing embroidery. We’ve been on CNN and are going to be in Vogue soon, it’s all going crazy.”
If you’d like to attend an event, keep an eye on the Pup Up Cafe website and social media. Tickets cost £12 for non dog-owners and £9 for those that bring one along. Dogs and children under 8 go free.
