Maid Cafes in Japan: Their History and Evolution

Drawing of women in maid cafe uniforms
You've probably seen a maid cafe - but where did they come from? A look at the history of maid cafes, how they've evolved, and what you should know before you go.

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Go to Akihabara and you’ll see a maid cafe everywhere you look. But how did they get started? Here’s a look at the history of maid cafes, how they’ve changed over the years, and what to know before you go.

The history of maid cafes in Japan

Cure Maid Cafe, Japan's first modern maid cafe and the progenitor of the concept
Cure Maid Cafe popularized the maid cafe concept in the modern era. (Picture: Cure Maid Cafe official Web site)

Maid cafes (メイドカフェ or, if you’re feeling fancy, 冥土カフェ in Japanese) are also known as “maid kissa” (喫茶). Kissa came about during Japan’s Meiji and Taisho eras, when coffee drinking took off in the country.

Lion Cafe in Ginza pioneered the “maid cafe” style, which features female staff wearing Western-style maid outfits, in 1924 (Taisho 13). Along with Tiger, which experimented with a number of different styles, the shops became especially popular among heterosexual men.

The first chain to popularize the modern maid cafe is still up and running today. Cure Maid Cafe opened in March 2001 in Akihabara. As its popularity expanded, other cafes, such as At Home, also sprung up.

Maid cafes today

Maid cafes boomed in popularity throughout the early 2000s. At one point, Akihabara was home to 282 stores. However, around 150 of those have closed in recent years, which echoes the general decline of Akihabara as an otaku hangout. In Tokyo, you can also find maid cafes in areas such as Shinjuku and Ikebukuro.

Maid cafes tend to remain male-dominated in terms of their customer base. However, women aren’t infrequent customers. According to site Moe Global, around 70% of maid cafe customers are male, with 30% female. It’s not odd for couples who are both into geek culture to go together.

Today, the largest maid cafe chains are At Home and Maidreamin. At Home occupies multiple buildings within Akiba and generally has a wait extending up to an hour and a half on weekends. Maidreamin has 20 stores nationwide, including its flagship store in Akiba.

What happens in a maid cafe?

Most maid cafes operate on the same model. Staff refer to male customers as ご主人様 (go-shujin-sama, master) and お嬢様 (o-jou-sama, mistress) and greet everyone with いらっしゃいませ (irasshaimase, welcome) or お帰りなさいませ (okaerinasai-mase, welcome home).

Maid cafes charge an hourly fee for taking a seat. This fee is usually cheap and ranges between 500 yen and 1,000 yen an hour.

You can buy drinks, dessert, and often food. Dessert is usually the main offering; however, many cafes offer dishes such as curry and omuraisu. Maids will often “bless” food to make it more delicious using the phrase 萌え萌えキュン (moe-moe-kyun) – a nonsense phrase you could roughly translate to something like “super-cute feels!” Staff will also offer to write a message on foods, using either chocolate sauce or ketchup, for an additional fee.

You can pay for live shows in which one or more staff members sing and dance. In addition, maids will offer Polaroid pictures or cheki (チェキ) for an additional fee.

Maid cafes are governed by strict rules on how customers interact with the staff. Photography is forbidden, outside of cheki and other photo ops that the store sells.

There’s zero physical contact with staff. It’s generally forbidden to exchange contact information and absolutely forbidden to ask for personal information.

Additionally, actions constituting harassment – such as waiting outside for staff, etc. – will get you banned and may even earn you a visit from the cops.

The “concept cafe” and related businesses

Granvania’s parallel world maid cafe blurs the lines between a maid cafe and a concept cafe. (Picture: Official Web site – English)

As the maid cafe concept has grown, other businesses have attempted to put their unique twists on the idea. These concept cafes (コンセプトカフェ), or “con cafes,” sub out the maid concept with another theme. For example, a store may have a doll theme, a magical girl theme, a succubus theme, a hospital theme, etc.

Con cafes generally charge a higher per-hourly fee as part of their financial “system.” The flip side is that the staff tends to give you individualized, and in some cases dedicated, attention, enabling you to talk to them most of the time you’re there.

Con cafes also have oshi, or fan, systems, where you can help support an individual staff member by buying them drinks (cast drink, or kya-dora) or expensive bottles of champagne.

A girl’s bar (ガールズバー) is somewhat similar to a con cafe. However, a girl’s bar operates as a typical bar, just with an all-female staff and a system similar to con cafes. Girl’s bars can be open all night, while most con cafes close at midnight.

Con cafes differ from cabaret clubs (kya-kura) and host clubs. All three businesses operate on similar financial models and “systems.” However, in con cafes, there’s absolutely no contact between cast and customers. Cabaret clubs and host clubs require a social bar license under Japan’s fuzoku (風俗) or entertainment law that allows customer contact (接待; settai), so that hosts and hostesses can sit together with their clients.

Blurred lines

Finally, there are businesses that blur the line between these distinctions. There are maid cafes, for example, that operate more like cabaret clubs. And there are con cafes that operate until the wee hours of the morning like a girl’s bar.

Ultimately, how a business operates depends on what license it holds. Not getting the correct license can be costly. When Adult Video (AV) company SOD Land opened a bar featuring its actresses, it tried to skirt getting a social bar license. That led to police arresting the company’s CEO.

Additionally, there are maid cafes that operate like maid cafes but choose a theme like a con cafe to set them apart. One example is Akiba Nara Isekai Meido O-Kyuushi Shitatte Mondai Nai Yo Ne! (It’s Akiba, There’s Nothing Wrong With Maids From Another Dimension Waiting Tables, Right?) The location, which (purposefully) sounds like the title of a light novel, puts on the conceit that its maids have all come from a parallel universe.

Maid cafes expand

The staff at Tsukuyomi Akihabara Maid Cafe
Staff at Tsukuyomi in Akihabara, the Taiwan chain’s first-ever maid cafe in Japan. (Picture: PRTimes)

The maid cafe concept has proved popular enough to spread outside of Japan. Arcane Maid Cafe and Asayoru are two maid cafes in Arcadia, CA, for example.

Maid cafes have also gained traction in multiple countries throughout Asia. In Taiwan, the chain Tsukuyomi has seven locations alone. It’s grown so popular that it opened its first store in Akihabara, the birthplace of the maid cafe, last year.

Within Japan itself, businesses keep experimenting with the maid concept. For example, most maids hire young women in their 20s. Non-profit organization Kids’ Valley, however, runs a cafe in Gunma once a month where all of the maids are senior citizens in their 60s.

Visiting a maid cafe – even if you don’t speak Japanese

So the big question is: can you go to a maid cafe if you don’t speak Japanese?

The answer is generally yes. That’s especially true for the larger chains, such as At Home and Maidreamin. That’s not a guarantee, mind you, that the staff can speak any language besides Japanese. But it means the menus are generally translated (even if machine-translated) into multiple languages via an online ordering system.

Staff generally know enough English – or at least have someone working who does – to help you have a fun and enjoyable experience. Larger operations are also likely to have a diverse cast with some non-Japanese staff who can speak a variety of languages.

Note that the same can’t be said for maid cafe offshoots such as con cafes. Maid cafes have choreographed and scripted actions that they can fall back on if there’s a language gap. The same can’t be said for con cafes, where most of the interaction is conversational. In general, if you can’t speak Japanese and the business doesn’t explicitly cater to foreigners, a con cafe might not be the best use of your time and money.

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What to read next

Sources

メイド喫茶. Wikipedia JP

現代消費文化を覗く-あなたの知らないオタクの世界(3)Nissei Kihon Kenkyusho

日本初進出!台湾No.1メイドカフェ「ツクヨミメイドカフェ」が2023年12月10日(日)秋葉原にオープン. PRTimes

高齢者のユニークな憩いの場 その名も“冥土喫茶” 桐生. NHK Gunma News Web

“日本が好き”が伝わってくる、これが台湾のメイドカフェだ!ASCII

お寺で楽しむメイドカフェ 「洋と和がマッチ、深い味わい」 長野市の善光寺で出張イベント. Shinano Mainichi Shimbun

銀座が「カフェの聖地」として別格である理由. Toyo Keizai

コンカフェって何?メイドカフェとの違いを解説!Nihon Zenkoku no Kon-kafe Joho Saito

メイドカフェでの定番のセリフやよく使われる用語とは?Moe Global

メイドカフェの「メイド」が悩む、時間外労働としての「SNS労働」. Gendai Media

ガールズバーとコンカフェの違いは?コンセプトや服装の違いも紹介. Con-Girl

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