The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with nearly 3,500 shows. This year, Playbill is in Edinburgh for the entire month in August for the festival, and we’re taking you with us. Follow along as we cover every single aspect of the Fringe, aka our real-life Brigadoon!
One day you are walking down the cobblestone streets of Edinburgh, admiring the castle, waiting to kill time between Fringe shows. Then before you know it, you are sitting on a couch covered in chihuahuas. Yes, you read that right.
While in Edinburgh, the Playbill team have been immersing ourselves not just in the Fringe Festival, but in the entire city. We've gone on ghost tours, hiked up a volcano, explored Edinburgh Castle, dined at local restaurants where witches were killed... What we've noticed is Fringe doesn't just happen at theatre venues. It happens all around the city, with many local bars and restaurants, even whiskey distilleries, hosting their own Fringe events.
And one atypical Fringe venue is a cafe filled with chihuahuas. As Chihuahua Cafe owner/co-founder Tanya Salitura told me, "Every year we like to get involved in the spirit of the Fringe Festival. As a permanent business here in Edinburgh, we don't sign up to feature fully in the Fringe catalogue, but we host themed Party Days every weekend in August. The staff, both human and dog, get dressed up, and extra props and silliness go on to fully embody a theme. It's a chance to get a selfie with a dog dressed as a Princess/dinosaur and is just extra cute fun."
Indeed, there are not many places in the world where you can visit and see a chihuahua named Elsa dressed up as Elsa from Frozen. Let it go? I didn't want that chihuahua to leave my side!
So, you maybe asking, what is a chihuahua cafe? It's right there in the name: It is a cafe where you can sip coffee/tea and have some cake while playing with chihuahuas. You've probably heard of cat cafes, where you book a time slot to visit, and there, you can sip tea and pet cats—those cafes began in Asia, and the trend then spread around the world. Edinburgh even has one.
But dog cafes are much rarer, and the Chihuahua Cafe is the first cafe in the world to feature chihuahuas (though there is a pug cafe in London). The idea for it came when Salitura got her chihuahua Ama, a black and tan long-haired chihuahua. "She is the reason we were the world's first Chihuahua specific cafe. Other dog cafes existed, but we wanted to merge the zen energy of Cat Cafes with the instant affection only dogs can bring," says Salitura.
But why chihuahuas? "Chihuahuas are a naturally very lazy, very people-oriented breed. This in itself means they are already much more satisfied and happy in their working environment than a lot of breeds of dog would be. We work with the dogs' natures rather than against them. If we asked Collies to sit still all day, they would be frustrated, and that's not what we want!"
At the five-year-old cafe, the staff tell us that chihuahuas were bred to be lap dogs, and they can sleep for 16 hours a day. Indeed, when we were in the cafe (which has a maximum capacity of 12 guests), the seven chihuahuas there sat on various laps with very little prompting. One, named Jasmine (a chocolate-colored long hair), even slept on my lap on her back with her paws in the air. I rubbed her belly because she was being a very good girl—until she leapt off my lap to go back at her nemesis Lady B, a white smooth coat, for encroaching on her space (these divas!).
All seven chihuahuas are owned by Salitura, and they go home with her at the end of the day. The Chihuahua Cafe only allows guests to visit during three time slots during the day, making it an even more intimate experience, and healthier for the dogs.
And at the Chihuahua Cafe, there are some local celebrities. One dog, Faery, a smooth coat chihuahua with a reddish tint to her coat, has even been in multiple productions of Legally Blonde the Musical. You can tell Faery is a show dog. Both times the Playbill staff visited the Chihuahua Cafe, Faery hopped onto our laps and slept there while we massaged her back—she likes a deep tissue massage, and she feels soft and squishy like a loaf of bread. Perhaps she felt our theatre energy and knew we were safe people.
Another dog, Cleopatra (a long-haired chihuahua with a stable-colored coat), has even been in a Fringe show called Piff the Magic Dragon. Salitura is proud of her babies: "All the dogs have been involved in several TV shows for the BBC and STV, and they are not strangers to the limelight!"
No wonder they have no issues posing for people. At the end of the session, guests gets to have their own photo where every chihuahua in the cafe gathers around them (and on them). The staff members pull off this feat by enticing the dogs with venison, and the dogs are so well-trained that they need very little prompting to go from one group of guests to the next. When this happened to me, I felt giddy, joyful...yet conflicted. I've always considered myself a cat person, a cat cafe is one of my favorite activities and I have the lack of ego that enables me to beg for a cat's love with no shame.
But sitting on the couch, with multiple chihuahuas on my lap, I wondered: Am I a dog person now?
Faery at the Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe
Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe
Jasmine at the Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe
Elsa of the Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe
Elsa of the Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe
Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe
Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe
Playbill's Director of Social Media Jeffrey Vizcaíno and Photo Editor Heather Gershonowitz at the Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe. Dogs, from left to right: Lady B, Faery, Ama, Elsa, Cleopatra, Hepburn, and Jasmine.
