Perhaps perfect’s what Kreuzkölln’s Katie’s Blue Cat is on this aching-for-spring last day of February. But who’s to say. Tucked just off of the canal, on Friedelstraße, Olivia and Ngoc’s Katie’s Blue Cat Café is painted a striking, fairytale blue, with rustic tables and chairs roosting out front, all through winter. Fingerless-gloved hipsters shiver out there during cloud cover, smoking rollies, wearing bright red caps and horn-rimmed glasses. I haven’t seen any attractive, writerly boy’s nose in years, they won’t allow it. They wave their hands, looking spastic over the “state of things,” whilst their premium, altogether delicious coffee–cultivated via Bonanza Coffee Roasters–dims. No one knows what to do, and there’s no wi-fi at Blue Cat for figuring it out.

The interior is cabin-like, cozy, with its commitment to “Anglophone” baking a sight to bring tears to these sugar-crazed American eyes. Cinnamon rolls. Carrot cakes. Crumpets. Shortbreads. Every day’s Christmas. The dim, warm light blends the colors, the caramels, the cinnamons, the teddy-bear-browns, together, and the stunning flowers, the commitment to beauty, lend an immediate boost. Whatever the state of the world is, it doesn’t exist here. Take off your glasses. Release the tension in your shoulders. Let the sun go down.

The music’s just right. Gorgeous friends with long, gleaming hair, mother-daughter dates, the black-turtlenecked-German swiping through pages of poetry in the corner–they all come and go, ducking in for NY-style bagels or cakes, sniffing ruby-red noses into scarves. It’s nostalgic, just being there. Alone, you feel the weight of these other memories, created. Until you, too, slip back down the canal, find peace in the coming spring, and reassess the scandal of being alive right now. Or just the scandal of not inhaling that entire carrot cake, in a single sitting, before the world starts spinning backward and the sun blackens, which it could at any moment: this is 2017.

Because you haven’t read this far anyway, this Warren Ellis (not the Nick Cave one) quote is my Katie’s Blue Cat Café experience, in a nutshell:

“Remember when there was enough time and such a lack of pressure in the world that we felt like we could burn hours complaining about how our fictional futures never quite turned up?”

In all seriousness, go to Katie’s Blue Cat Café. It’s got good shit.

Opening Hours:
Tues–Fri 8.30–18.30h,
Sat–Sun 10–19h

P.S. Some lovely soul, @erin.studio, sketched some strangers whilst sitting in Katie’s. Too nice not to share.

#katiesbluecat #berlin #drawing #illustration

A post shared by Erin.Choe: Illustrator,Berlin (@erin.studio) on Mar 8, 2016 at 11:01pm PST

Katie’s Blue Cat,
Friedelstraße 31,
12047 Berlin