A pair of cashmere goats destined for the cooking pot have been spared after their impressive escape bid turned them into online celebrities.

The goats – native to Mongolia – had been sold to a restaurant in Chongqing municipality, southwest China, as a delicacy for the menu.

But as staff fed them up in a back room, the pair fled when someone left a door open.

A spokesman for the restaurant said that the staff had given chase for over four hours but failed to catch them and they reported the goats missing to police.

But locals turned the pair into online celebrities with snaps and videos of them after they fled to a busy underpass going viral.

They were recovered from the tunnel by police, and handed back to the restaurant.

The owners said so many people had contacted them about the goats that they had decided to take them off the menu and turn them into unofficial mascots.

A spokesman for the store, identified only as Mr Li, said: “We were surprised at all the videos of the escape bid and as they were clearly so determined to survive, we felt that the only thing we could do was keep them.”

He added that they would not be kept on the store premises but would move to a farm where videos and pictures could be shared with followers and they would become unofficial ambassadors for the business.