Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/cats-diorama-restaurant-japan/

There is nothing quite like having a little kitten sitting on your lap, comfortably purring away. It is comforting, and one of the beautiful things in life that we all appreciate.

The same thing couldn’t quite be said for giant cats that have the power to tear down buildings and destroy bridges. Of course, we realize that is something out of fantasy, but in Osaka, a restaurant recently employed some “giant cats” to save their business when the pandemic hit.

Naoki Teraoka owns a restaurant in Osaka that uses miniature railways as a theme. When the pandemic hit, the business began to lag as people were coming to the restaurant less and less.

Rather than giving up, the restaurant owner decided to take things to the next level. They got creative, and a stray kitten showed up at just the right time.

Teraoka saw the little kitten hanging out at the restaurant and he just couldn’t say no. Rather than rejecting the feline, they decided to adopt it and make it a member of the family.

After bringing the kitten into the fold and calling her Simba, they found out that there was more to the bargain than what they had initially thought. Before long, another cat showed up in the window and it was Simba’s mother.

Now that the customers were lagging and the food was not, they decided to start feeding the new stray some of the extra food. It wasn’t very long before the mother cat showed up again but she had three other kittens with her, all looking for something to eat.

In an interview with Bored Panda, Teraoka admitted that things were tight at the time but they wanted to help the kittens in any way they could. They adopted all of the kittens, hoping to give them what they needed, but as it turns out, the kittens provided them with what the restaurant and entire family needed.

Since there were some model train decorations throughout the restaurant, the cats started making themselves comfortable on them. It looked like something right out of a Godzilla movie, with these little kittens appearing to be giant felines that were towering over those miniature landscapes, and they shared photos of the cats on Instagram.

The scenery was just too much for Teraoka to handle. He started taking more and more pictures of the cats. It wasn’t long before the pictures were going viral and Teraoka got inspired to take things even further.

The trains had always been the feature attraction at the restaurant but it was slowly being transformed into a cat sanctuary. People who came to the restaurant could now get a good plate of food but they were able to share it with some stray cats that were making themselves at home in the restaurant as well.

The customers not only loved hanging out with the felines, they even began to adopt them. As a result, Teraoka tries to bring in kittens that are at serious risk. He will travel to make rescues, sometimes up to 200 miles and since he got started, he has helped more than 60 strays find a forever home.

It’s amazing how something that starts out so small can quickly snowball into something epic. Thankfully, for this family and restaurant, one stray cat was able to save everything.

You can keep up with them on Instagram, @diorama_syokudou.

Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog