Nostalgia and the chance to reimagine her childhood prompted Savannah Martinez to drive more than 300 miles from Arizona to the grand opening Friday of the first Hello Kitty and Friends Café in Los Angeles, located at Universal CityWalk Hollywood.
Adorned in kitty ears and matching white Hello Kitty platform boots, Martinez, 24, arrived at 2 a.m. to be the first person in line. She and her three friends — similarly decked out in pastel pink and some sporting permanent Sanrio tattoos — were buzzing with excitement before the cafe opened at 11 a.m. They were the first to order at an outdoor counter, with at least 100 people lining up behind them.
Vanessa Gonzalez, a 26-year-old friend of Martinez’s with pink hair, explained why she braved the sweltering heat. “We’re all healing our inner child,” she said. “I loved Hello Kitty, but when we were kids we couldn’t afford it. So now that we’re adults we spend our money on Hello Kitty… I can’t help it and I can afford it.”
González still thinks about the Hello Kitty television she couldn't afford when she was a child.
Nevis Aguillon, a 36-year-old woman who lives in downtown Los Angeles, nodded: “Hello Kitty is too expensive for kids,” she said.
Adorned with a giant pink Hello Kitty bow and framed by a pastel pink and white striped awning, the outdoor cafe offered a takeout menu of desserts and sweet drinks.
The Hello Kitty and Friends outdoor cafe serves sweet treats and specialty drinks based on Sanrio characters.
(Julian Market)
Universal CityWalk rolls out a pastel pink virtual carpet to welcome guests to the Hello Kitty® and Friends Café.
(Julian Market)
Hello Kitty Cafe also has locations in Irvine, Las Vegas and Vancouver. There is also a Gudetama Cafe, which opened earlier this year at the Buena Park Downtown Mall.
On Friday, the crowd at Hello Kitty and Friends was mostly adults, many of them Latino. There were few children.
Hello Kitty's enduring power was palpable inside the adjacent store and outside, where hundreds of Sanrio fans lined up to enter the cafe and shop well into the afternoon.
“Oh my God, that’s so cute,” was heard repeatedly.
Anthropologist Christine R. Yano said the enduring appeal of the pink-bowed Japanese character lies in its flexibility.
“She can become anything to anyone,” said Yano, a retired University of Hawaii professor who spent years studying the Hello Kitty phenomenon. “She can appeal to a preschooler, a 9-year-old, a 19-year-old, a 29-year-old, and so on, for different reasons. It doesn’t have to be the same reason.”
Yano, author of the book “Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Journey Across the Pacific,” said Hello Kitty’s simplicity, including the austerity of the character designs, makes it endure.
“Hello Kitty can be edgy and punk. She can be cute,” Yano said. “She keeps giving her fans different things, depending on what they want or need.”
The cafe opened simultaneously with and next to the Sanrio Smile Shop, offering collectible items such as backpacks, T-shirts and plush toys featuring Hello Kitty, Cinnamoroll, Keroppi, Kuromi, My Melody, Badtz-Maru and Chococat. Customers also purchased Hello Kitty and Friends Cafe-themed items, sold exclusively at the store.
Merchandise such as backpacks, T-shirts and plush toys feature Hello Kitty, Cinnamoroll, Keroppi, Kuromi, My Melody, Badtz-Maru and Chococat. Hello Kitty and Friends Cafe-themed merchandise is also available exclusively at the store.
(Julian Market)
Guests at the outdoor cafe enjoyed sweet treats and specialty drinks inspired by the beloved character and his group of Sanrio friends.
Every few minutes, a group of Sanrio fans inside the store would chant, “Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty.”
Domed cakes and whipped cream drinks at Hello Kitty and Friends.
(Julian Market)
At the opening of the Hello Kitty and Friends cafe and the store next door, there was repeated refraining: “Oh my God, that's so cute.”
(Julian Market)
At the cafe, the Sanrio-themed menu includes several fun, sugar-laden desserts, including a strawberry shortcake and a Chococat-inspired chocolate mocha cake.
The cute treats included a rainbow-speckled Hello Kitty-shaped sugar cookie and a macaron set in raspberry, caramel, vanilla, pistachio and chocolate flavors.
Aguillon savored a slice of Hello Kitty's Mousse Dome, a dome-shaped red chocolate cake with cinnamon mousse, apple pie filling and cinnamon streusel.
“This is a 10 out of 10,” she said of the sweet gift.
But the berry and cream churro topped with cream cheese frosting and pink sprinkles was a bit too cloying for most of the group. “I would give it an 8.5,” Martinez said.
The drinks were a hit, despite the temperature being over 38ºC. They were all inspired by various popular Japanese characters.
Hello Kitty's Strawberry Green Iced Tea has a pink sugar rim, and the Chococat Iced Mocha features chocolate boba, of course.
Cold drinks in a variety of flavors and named after Sanrio characters were a hit in the sweltering heat.
(Julian Market)
Nelly Martinez — a friend of Savannah’s who is not related to her — sipped on a blue raspberry lemonade named after Tuxedosam, a dapper penguin character from the Sanrio universe. “I’m diabetic,” Martinez said. “I just bought it for the photo.”
“Can you make a video of me trying the churro?” Savannah Martinez asked Gonzalez. She planned to post it soon on her Hello Kitty-themed Instagram.
He didn't really feel like driving back to Arizona. He had to leave that very day.
“I have to work tomorrow,” she said. “I need to earn that money as an adult.”
Universal CityWalk rolls out a pastel pink virtual carpet to welcome guests to the Hello Kitty® and Friends Café.
(Julian Market)
