Australia’s First Hello Kitty Cafe Just Opened In Adelaide. Please Send Help.

Bouncing back from her identity crisis earlier this year, Hello Kitty’s ~furst~ Australian cafe has opened its doors in Adelaide.

Following in the paw prints of Seoul, Tokyo, Taiwan and more, Hello Kitty Cafe Australia opened with a soft launch on Sunday — because a girl/cat/whatever worth 7 billion shekels gives zero invitations. With a meagre social media presence and no website to speak of, Kitty White’s latest joint will rely on foot traffic through the square mile’s Chinatown environs.

Nestled amongst cheap eats, Asian grocers and discount souvenir stores, Hello Kitty Cafe Australia caters to those who long to put a ‘Chocolate Potty Plant’ or ‘Mysterious Black Duke’ in their mouth, and chase it down with a ‘Surfed Baby’ or ‘Grassy Bee’. Just hours after opening, the eatery was already buzzing. Sources suggested that was just the Grassy Bees, but I recognised the sound of a hundred hearts palpitating in saccharine synchronicity.

So I hurled myself, headband first, into Early-Onset Diabetes.

Torn between a ‘Marguerite On the Massif’ or ‘When Hello Kitty Met Dear Daniel’, I chose the latter: a rose-flavoured milk tea with dried flowers on top, aka liquid old-lady’s-house, in my mouth.

As a self-inflicted vegetarian, I grabbed heart disease by the horns and sampled a profane number of animal faces, served in macaron, mousse and waffle forms. Next visit, it’s the Pinky Macaron Burger: “a Big Mac sized macaron filled with rosy raspberry custard, mini raspberry jelly and strawberry finished with raspberry ink, topped with a rose petal”.

Save for a few obligatory crying kids, the atmosphere was surprisingly subdued. Harry Connick Jnr-speed jazz and earth tone décor may not be the stuff of my super Sanrio dreams, but I guess it affects a certain gender neutrality  — it’s neat to see Kitty attracting a broader crowd than one might imagine.

Along with this white-skinned, purple-haired gaijin, two middle-aged Anglo suits shared a slice of mud cake while chatting “finance capital” and “getting bought out” — which may be a sex thing? International students huddled in couples, Instagramming cat-face crème caramels while Chinese nainai napped nearby. A couple of mums with as many kids sampled high tea near me.

I noticed the youngest member of their party had made my rookie mistake, dressing top to tail in candy colours to match the expected kawaii décor. When questioned, Charlize revealed that she was stoked that the couches were at least glittery.

If you’re looking for a Shinjuku-flavour shake-up but don’t want to stray from that ACDT timezone, Hello Kitty Cafe Australia has got what you need: suspiciously named sweetmeats, plentiful selfie ops with plastic cat statues, and probable future tooth decay.

Enjoy irresponsibly, sweet fancy smile dream revolution girls.

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Find the Hello Kitty Cafe on 31 Moonta St, off Gouger St.

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Aimee Knight’s words have appeared in The Adelaide Review, Rip It Up, Lip Magazine and more. Follow her demise: @aimeeknightout

Photos by Aimee Knight.