The Queen of Kure Beach: Beloved tabby Bibi charms locals and visitors alike

KURE BEACH, NC (WWAY) — Some call her “The Queen of Kure Beach,” others “The Beautiful Pier Kitty,” but most people know her simply as Bibi. 

The brown tabby who you may have seen on Facebook has quickly racked up nearly six thousand followers from the Cape Fear and beyond.  

Bibi frequents local businesses in Kure Beach throughout the day, with locals and visitors always on the lookout to meet her. Bibi even got a handful of write-in votes for mayor during the last election.  

Owner Mark Stewart said Bibi became family after his fiancé Michalanne Cook brought in a stray pregnant with two kittens. One of those kittens would eventually be named Bibi. 

“I picked Bibi because she had this big head,” Stewart recalled. “I was like ‘oh, that’s a smart one.’ I didn’t know how smart she was at the time.”  

And as Stewart’s 9-year-old granddaughter Annabelle explains, Bibi eventually outsmarted her way to the outside world.  

“She was an escape artist,” Annabelle said. “She kept on making it out. So finally, one day he put a collar with ‘Bibi’ and the contact.”  

Now free to roam about the beach, Bibi quickly made friends with locals, like owner of Happy Hippies Java Hut, Terry Karter.  

“We’ve had her waiting out there for us many times. And then she comes in and has ‘coffee,’ her food,” Karter said. 

Karter added that Bibi has even helped promote some business.  

“People come in and they’ll ask, ‘is Bibi in here?’ ‘Has she been in yet today?’ ‘Have you seen her today,’” Karter said. 

But it’s not just locals that are eager to meet Bibi. Some come from hundreds, and even thousands of miles to meet her.  

“I’ll come down from Delaware just to look for Bibi, and then I look for the parents. She’s the main attraction here,” visitor Pam Bergmann said. “We in Rehoboth Beach don’t have anything like this. We need something like this. People from Ohio, people from Kansas yesterday knew where she was from.”  

“The hotel managers say that they used to say ‘if we stay there, are you close to the fishing pier?’ But now, their first question is ‘if we stay there, will we get a chance to see Bibi,” Stewart added. 

As Cook explains, it’s not just her loving, independent character that makes Bibi special. It’s also the community that she calls home.  

“I think it’s amazing. We have a whole community that watches out for her,” Cook said. 

Cook added that when Bibi went missing in October 2021, the community came together to help find her.

Stewart has also started selling Bibi shirts and merchandise. A portion of the proceeds will go to caring for other island pets at the Carolina Beach Animal Hospital.