Cosplay restaurant
Encyclopedia
, are theme restaurant
s and pubs that originated in Akihabara
, Tokyo
, Japan
around the year 1999. They include and , where the service staff dress as elegant maid
s, or as butlers. Such restaurants and cafés have quickly become a staple of Japanese otaku
culture. Compared with service at normal café
s, the service at cosplay cafés involves the creation of a rather different atmosphere. The staff treat the customers as masters
and mistresses
in a private home rather than merely as café customers.
The popularity of the Cosplay restaurants and maid cafes has spread to other regions in Japan, such as Osaka
's Den Den Town as well as to places outside Japan, such as Hong Kong
, Taiwan
, Singapore
, Mexico
, Canada
, and the Philippines
.
s (occasionally, the maids may wear rabbit or cat ears for extra cute appeal) and refer to the customers as either or . Upon entering one of such stores, the customer is greeted with the customary , offered a wipe towel
and shown a food/drink menu
. Popular dishes include cakes (sometimes baked by the maids themselves), ice-cream, omurice
, spaghetti
, as well as drinks such as coca-cola
, tea
, milk
or alcoholic beverages such as beer
or, in some cases, even champagne. Other options (of service) include taking polaroid pictures
(either of the maid alone, together with another maid or with the customer, which are then decorated using colored markers or stickers), playing card
, video games, and/or even slightly more unusual ones, such as being slapped by one or more of the maids. There exists a wide range of establishments catering to specific tastes and offering different services to customers.
instead of Master or Mistress. Inside, regular tables are replaced by school desks and even the menu is served in trays reminiscent of the ones used in Japanese schools.
Other themes include, , or cafes/izakaya
.
Recently, with the maid cafe scene booming, additional related services have become popular. These include , a foot or hand massage, photography sessions (the customer typically rents time in a studio during which he can tell a maid which costume to wear and how to pose) or even "dates" with maids.
s in these cafes are well-dressed male employees and may wear either a typical waiter's uniform or even a tuxedo or tails. One butler cafe has its waiters cosplay as teenage schoolboys, in an effort to appeal to the fujoshi
who enjoy Boy's Love.
There are also cross-dressing butler cafes, where female staff dress up as butlers, instead of actual men.
.
, and was featured in CBC
's newsmagazine, The Hour. The cafe was closed in November 2007 because management failed to pay back rent.
In December 2007, Royal-T opened in Culver City, California
, and has been featured in several magazines, such as Elle
and the LA Times. It is a combination of maid cafe, store, and art gallery.
In September, 2008, a Japanese franchise Crepe House Uni, opened in Davis, California
. Their workers wear maid uniforms, but they are not exactly a maid cafe.
Theme restaurant
Theme restaurants are restaurants in which the concept of the restaurant takes priority over everything else, influencing the architecture, food, music, and overall 'feel' of the restaurant...
s and pubs that originated in Akihabara
Akihabara
, also known as , is an area of Tokyo, Japan. It is located less than five minutes by rail from Tokyo Station. Its name is frequently shortened to in Japan...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
around the year 1999. They include and , where the service staff dress as elegant maid
Maid
A maidservant or in current usage housemaid or maid is a female employed in domestic service.-Description:Once part of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper and even middle-income households can afford, as was historically the case...
s, or as butlers. Such restaurants and cafés have quickly become a staple of Japanese otaku
Otaku
is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga or video games.- Etymology :Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family , which is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun...
culture. Compared with service at normal café
Coffeehouse
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
s, the service at cosplay cafés involves the creation of a rather different atmosphere. The staff treat the customers as masters
Master (form of address)
Master is an archaic masculine title or form of address in English.- In English and Welsh society :Master was used in England for men of some rank, especially "free masters" of a trade guild and by any manual worker or servant employee to his employer , but also generally by those lower in status...
and mistresses
Mistress (form of address)
Mistress is an old form of address for a woman. It implies "lady of the house", especially a woman who is head of a household.An example is Mistress Quickly in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. The title did not necessarily distinguish between married and unmarried women.The title Mrs. is...
in a private home rather than merely as café customers.
The popularity of the Cosplay restaurants and maid cafes has spread to other regions in Japan, such as Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
's Den Den Town as well as to places outside Japan, such as Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
.
Maid café
In a standard maid cafe the female employees dress up as french maidFrench maid
French maid refers to a strongly modified style of servant’s dress that evolved from typical maids’ black and white afternoon uniforms of the nineteenth century . The designs of the French maid dress can range widely from a conservative look to revealing...
s (occasionally, the maids may wear rabbit or cat ears for extra cute appeal) and refer to the customers as either or . Upon entering one of such stores, the customer is greeted with the customary , offered a wipe towel
Oshibori
An or hot towel in English is a wet hand towel offered to customers in places such as restaurants or bars in Japan and in Japanese restaurants worldwide. Oshibori are used to clean one's hands before eating, and have long been a common sight in Japan. Cold oshibori are used in summer, and hot...
and shown a food/drink menu
Menu
In a restaurant, a menu is a presentation of food and beverage offerings. A menu may be a la carte – which guests use to choose from a list of options – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is served....
. Popular dishes include cakes (sometimes baked by the maids themselves), ice-cream, omurice
Omurice
Omurice, sometimes spelled , is an example of contemporary Japanese fusion cuisine consisting of an omelette made with fried rice and usually topped with ketchup. Omu and raisu being contractions of the words omelette and rice, the name is a wasei-eigo...
, spaghetti
Spaghetti
Spaghetti is a long, thin, cylindrical pasta of Italian origin. Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour...
, as well as drinks such as coca-cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
, tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
, milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
or alcoholic beverages such as beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
or, in some cases, even champagne. Other options (of service) include taking polaroid pictures
Instant camera
The instant camera is a type of camera that generates a developed film image. The most popular types to use self-developing film were formerly made by Polaroid Corporation....
(either of the maid alone, together with another maid or with the customer, which are then decorated using colored markers or stickers), playing card
Playing card
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...
, video games, and/or even slightly more unusual ones, such as being slapped by one or more of the maids. There exists a wide range of establishments catering to specific tastes and offering different services to customers.
Others
In other stores, the outfits and even the setting itself change. In school-themed cafes, for example, customers are referred to as senpaiSenpai
and are an essential element of Japanese seniority-based status relationships, similar to the way that family and other relationships are decided based on age, with even twins being divided into elder and younger sibling...
instead of Master or Mistress. Inside, regular tables are replaced by school desks and even the menu is served in trays reminiscent of the ones used in Japanese schools.
Other themes include, , or cafes/izakaya
Izakaya
An is a type of Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food to accompany the drinks. They are popular, casual places for after-work drinking.-Name:...
.
Recently, with the maid cafe scene booming, additional related services have become popular. These include , a foot or hand massage, photography sessions (the customer typically rents time in a studio during which he can tell a maid which costume to wear and how to pose) or even "dates" with maids.
Butler café
While most cosplay restaurants and maid cafes cater mostly to men, there is also a type for women called the . The butlerButler
A butler is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor, and housekeepers caring for the entire house and its...
s in these cafes are well-dressed male employees and may wear either a typical waiter's uniform or even a tuxedo or tails. One butler cafe has its waiters cosplay as teenage schoolboys, in an effort to appeal to the fujoshi
Fujoshi
Yaoi fandom refers to readers of yaoi , a genre of male-male romance narratives aimed at a female audience, and more specifically those who participate in communal activities organized around yaoi, such as attending conventions, maintaining or posting to fansites, creating fanfiction or fanart,...
who enjoy Boy's Love.
There are also cross-dressing butler cafes, where female staff dress up as butlers, instead of actual men.
Variants
With the popularity of maid cafes, a number of other businesses have followed. Within Akihabara alone one can find several legitimate massage parlors, a maid eyeglass store, and at least one cosplay/maid izakayaIzakaya
An is a type of Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food to accompany the drinks. They are popular, casual places for after-work drinking.-Name:...
.
America and Canada
One maid cafe which opened in the west was the "i maid cafe" located in Scarborough, OntarioScarborough, Ontario
Scarborough is a dissolved municipality within the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Geographically, it comprises the eastern part of Toronto. It is bordered on the south by Lake Ontario, on the west by Victoria Park Avenue, on the north by Steeles Avenue East, and on the east by the Rouge River...
, and was featured in CBC
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
's newsmagazine, The Hour. The cafe was closed in November 2007 because management failed to pay back rent.
In December 2007, Royal-T opened in Culver City, California
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
, and has been featured in several magazines, such as Elle
Elle (magazine)
Elle is a worldwide magazine of French origin that focuses on women's fashion, beauty, health, and entertainment. Elle is also the world's largest fashion magazine. It was founded by Pierre Lazareff and his wife Hélène Gordon in 1945. The title, in French, means "she".-History:Elle was founded in...
and the LA Times. It is a combination of maid cafe, store, and art gallery.
In September, 2008, a Japanese franchise Crepe House Uni, opened in Davis, California
Davis, California
Davis is a city in Yolo County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area...
. Their workers wear maid uniforms, but they are not exactly a maid cafe.
See also
- Maid in AkihabaraMaid in Akihabarais a 6 episode series that was produced in Japan in 2005 and released on February 24, 2006. Each episode ran about 15 minutes, and took place in Akihabara, Tokyo - the cyber city of Japan. The story begins when a woman named Saki, an ex-bar girl, tries to find a job to hide from a group of yakuza....
, a short Japanese television drama - CosplayCosplay, short for "costume play", is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and science fiction...
- Maid cafeMaid cafeMaid cafés are a subcategory of cosplay restaurants found predominantly in Japan. In these cafés, waitresses dressed in maid costumes act as servants, and treat customers as masters in a private home, rather than as café patrons...
- Butlers CafeButlers Cafeis a restaurant and bar located in Shibuya, Tokyo, one of Japan's leading fashion centers. The cafe opened in 2006 and spawned from a recent wave of or that have opened up in and around Tokyo, though predominantly in Akihabara. Butlers Cafe is one of a few butler theme cafes in Tokyo but as of...
External links
- Akibanana's Maid Cafe Reviews Akibanana's Maid Cafe Reviews
- Maid cafe database