When you’re walking down the street late at night, an unexpected sight like this might give you a little heart attack!

AjitsukemenmaP (＠yuuki122606) recently shared a photo to Twitter of a scene she stumbled upon at night that made her scream out...perhaps in cuteness-induced surprise!

It was a cat sitting nonchalantly inside a food display shelf of a restaurant!

Just as surprised as AjitsukemenmaP, we decided to ask the restaurant owner about the mysterious cat on display.

The displayed cat in the soba restaurant is named Peta, and has become somewhat of mascot cat of the soba restaurant, “Oomura”, located in Saitama prefecture. Like many Japanese restaurants, Oomura displays realistic plastic food samples of their menu to attract customers passing by--while Peta isn’t part of the menu, perhaps she was trying to draw in some sales as well.

Along with Peta, Peta’s mom Kota-chan also roams the floors at Oomura. It is well known locally as a soba noodle joint where cats welcome you in.

According to the restaurant owner, he adopted Kota-chan as a rescue cat about 6 years ago. It was a few months after that he realized that Kota was pregnant with Peta. Peta then was born later on.

Apparently, as opposed to Kota-chan who can be a little shy at times, Peta was raised in the restaurant ever since he was born, so he has a very close relationship with the patrons, too.

On behalf of the busy owner managing the restaurant alone, Peta often takes care of the customer service by being affectionate as a mascot cat!

The owner had already heard that his mascot cats were becoming famous on the internet from his customers.

During the interview, it was evident that the cats made the owner happy as he spoke about them with excitement!

Perhaps Kota and Peta are not only mascot cats for the restaurant, but also lucky cats that bring in fortune to the restaurant, too.