LAKEVIEW — One of Lakeview’s most hopping date night spots isn’t a bar or a restaurant. It doesn’t even serve food for human consumption — but it does offer guests sprigs of cilantro to feed to its resident rabbits.
Cuddle Bunny, a business offering live interactions with domestic rabbits, opened in summer 2020 at 2901 N. Clark St. Since its opening, it has become a hot spot for first dates.
“It’s funny because sometimes we’ll have people come in on a Friday, and then they’ll be back the next Friday but with somebody else,” Cuddle Buddy owner Barbara Burdick said.
Cuddle Bunny offers customers the opportunity to book hour-long rabbit encounter sessions, where small groups or individuals rotate between three spacious pens with one or two rabbits each. It also offers bunny yoga as a special once-a-month event.
Customers will also see one or two rabbits hanging around outside the enclosures. When Block Club visited, Anna and Elsa, named after the princesses in the movie “Frozen,” roamed freely while their all-white bunny friend Olaf spent time with guests inside one of the pens.
Cuddle Bunny patrons aren’t exclusively people looking for love, but it makes sense that the small business has attracted daters. The rabbits are adorable and the music and voices are kept low so as not to startle the rabbits, making it easier to talk than in a bar. The animals can also help fill voids in conversations and make for easy ice-breakers.
While being fun, these encounters can be therapeutic, too. Cuddle Bunny has had a lot of people visit who are on the autism spectrum or dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, Burdick said. A woman with zoophobia, or the fear of animals, even came in once, she said.
“She just watched them, and they just slept,” Burdick said. “She felt more comfortable with them, and by the end, she was able to pet them.”
The Lakeview location has 12 beloved and vaccinated resident rabbits of various breeds, including two rabbits of enormous size. Rex, a 13-pound continental rabbit, basked in the sunbeams during his turn free roaming and enjoyed the caresses of a little girl visiting with her father.
Cuddle Bunny staff rotate which rabbits come up from their homes in the basement to meet with visitors, who are allowed to pet but not hold them. Unlike their wild counterparts, domestic rabbits are social creatures who need attention, but the bunnies will let you know when they are ready for a break.
“They’ll hop away,” Burdick said. “No one forces them to interact, and if we feel like they’re having an off day, they can come back downstairs.”
All resident rabbits are rescues except one. Most came from shelters or were rehomed. One of Cuddle Bunny’s newest residents, a domestic named Cash, was discovered wandering in a forest preserve among wild rabbits.
A rabbit named Waddle Dee was abandoned by her previous owner, who left the rabbit in the Cuddle Bunny parking lot in a box.
“In the rain,” Burdick said. “With no food and no water.”
Burdick intended to take Waddle Dee to the Anti-Cruelty Society, but her heart got in the way. Burdick kept Waddle Dee and the box she came in. Waddle Dee is now one half of a bonded pair along with her male doppelgänger, Kirby. She was also the favorite of a trio of friends who visited Cuddle Bunny recently.
“I think we’re all very interested in Waddle Dee because her likes are long naps and exploring, and we relate,” said customer Martha Burla, referring to informational cards about the rabbits that hang inside each pen.
Cuddle Bunny is not an animal rescue and does not have the ability to take in every rabbit, Burdick said. It does offer boarding services for pet rabbits, and those animals do not interact with the public.
To connect interested parties to bunnies in need of homes, Cuddle Bunny partners with rescue One Tail at a Time and is happy to be an educational resource.
Cuddle Bunny staff take rabbit care extremely seriously, having lost four rabbits last summer to RHDV2, or rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus type two, in the state’s first known case of the disease. The experience was devastating, Burdick said.
At the time, the rabbits were in the process of being vaccinated against the virus, but the rabbits were exposed to the virus before completing the vaccination process.
“It was just so sad,” said Burdick, who had the lives of the four rabbits memorialized in a mural.
The vaccination of rabbits against RHDV2 is not mandated under Illinois law, but Cuddle Bunny now vaccinates all of its rabbits against the virus before introducing them to the public, in addition to having them spayed and neutered. The resident rabbits get booster shots every six months, and Cuddle Bunny does not allow the boarding of unvaccinated rabbits on its premises.
“We love them,” Burdick said. “We take good care of them.”
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