They don’t just serve drinks
While it’s totally acceptable to go to a maid café just in order to have a sit-down and a slice of cake, the maids there do way more than just take your order. In addition to drawing intricate pictures on your plate with sauce or powdered sugar, they’re also trained to be accomplished singers and dancers, who will perform on stage for guests during shifts.
There’s a lot of racial discrimination
Being a maid at a maid café is a dream job for many women, but that doesn’t mean things are always idyllic behind the scenes. Many cafes give preferential treatment to their Asian maids, with Caucasian foreign maids only being hired to act as translators for tourists. Maids of color are treated the worst, often being scorned by their coworkers, offered fewer shifts and given worse costumes.
You can be fired for gaining weight
Maids aren’t solely hired for their looks, but it would be untrue to say that appearances do not matter. Due to Japan’s strict body image standards, many maid cafes will implement a rule saying that anyone who cannot fit into their largest-sized uniform cannot join the team. Not only that, but employees who gain sufficient weight while working at a café can be asked to resign.
It’s not just guys who attend cafés
It’s often assumed that maid cafés are adult-only spaces patronized by single, lonely men. In reality, the bright, girly decor, friendly servers and cute food mean that many women also frequent the cafes. In fact, even children are not prohibited from being served as long as they are with a parent, so many will go to enjoy ice-cream sundaes shaped like teddy bears.
There’s a very strict hierarchy of maids
While all maids might look similar in dress or action at first glance, most cafés have a very strict and structured hierarchy. New employees start out as “shinjin meido” or newbie maids, and they work their way up to “sei meido” or senior maid status, which comes with frillier outfits. Some are even given the title of “sei meido” or premium maid, who are full-blown celebrities.
Auditions take six hours at least
Given that being a maid in a maid café is a highly sought-after job, being hired isn’t as easy as dropping off a resume and getting fitted for a dress. Auditions are hours long and include interview segments, song and dance training, and a multi-page script that prospectives have to learn. Once they have taken the senior maids through an entire customer experience, they’re in.
Tearing down other maids is encouraged
Despite the united and sunshiney front presented at most maid cafes, things aren’t always so rosy once customers are out of the door. In addition to sniping and gossip between different cafés being commonplace, maids who are coworkers are often vicious about each other’s looks and weight in private, even taking anonymously to maid drama forums to dish dirt.
There are also butler cafés
Maid cafés are widely known even outside of Japan, but butler cafés are more obscure. With that said, even though they are not as common, prolific or as known-about, butler cafés do exist. Inside them, men in suits wait on ladies in lush and luxuriously-decorated settings, though the food tends to be less cutesy and more classy.
They can’t use their real names
Being a maid at a maid café is an accepted teenage or young adult profession throughout much of Japan, often being compared to working at a theme park or on a cruise ship. However, pains are still taken to shield maids from embarrassment in their normal life. To the end, all maids are given adorable nicknames that reflect their unique maid persona.
Many maids are high school or college students
In the same way that many teens in the UK and US will get a paper round or babysit for spare cash, Japan allows teenagers to work part-time jobs. As a result, many high school students see maid cafés as a great way to gain people skills and confidence, while also getting to wear a cute outfit and sing and dance on shift.
There’s a very low acceptance rate at interviews
The money is so good working at these maid cafés, that despite the possibility of sexual harassment and general creepy treatment from the customers, many girls aspire to these jobs. However, the acceptance rate is very low. Usually, the interviews begin in a group setting and the applicants are whittled down from there – often finding out if they’ve been rejected in front of each other.
Maids can become celebrities
While all maids may have their particular customers who go back to see them and request pictures with them, certain maids such as super-premium maids become like idols online and in their area, with people looking up to them, sharing images of them, and traveling to see them.
There will usually be a legendary maid at every café
While these cafés will hire a large staff of maids to ensure each customer is waited on attentively, there is a hierarchy within the cafés. Generally, there will be one maid who has been there for a long time and has been impressive who then appointed the Queen maid and becomes the face/brand of the café.
It can take a toll on the maid’s mental health
While the job is considered very well paid and there are safety precautions in place to protect the staff from customers, the job can be very damaging to the mental health of the maids. The incredible pressure to maintain their appearance and remain perfect all the time can cause body image issues, depression, and anxiety. They’re constantly scrutinized and expected to perform at their best.
Fans post in forums about the maids
Just like there are forums online in which the maids will gossip about one another and try to damage each other’s reputations, there are also forums where the fans talk about maids. These conversations can be as innocent as sharing their favorite maids but can also get very graphic and sexual in nature.
Maid cafés grant wishes
Children are welcome at these cafés, and they have a much wider demographic than you may think at first. This means that many children have requested to visit a maid café from the Make-a-wish Foundation. Some cafés have been happy to comply with these requests, designing perfect days and services for terminally ill children.
It can lead to future careers
Many of the maids only work at the cafés while they’re at school to fund their education. Others work there until they age out of the role. But some maids use their time as a maid and the skills they’ve learned to go on and create a following online including now YouTuber Chika Alice. The entertainment experience is easily transferred to social media apps.
Customers also get titles
While the maids take on the character of a maid to serve the customer, the experience goes further than that with the customer becoming the ‘master’ for the time they are there. Male customers will be referred to as ‘master’ and the women as ‘princesses’ or even ‘ladies’, and they may even be given brightly colored licenses with their titles.
Most shops require a time charge
As a maid café is more about the experience of your service there and the aesthetic (rather than the food), customers either chose how long you’d like to be there from a price sheet, or their time in the café is monitored and they are charged accordingly. Tourists beware; if you lose track of time, your maid café visit could prove very expensive.
There are rules to protect staff
There are many rules in place to protect the employees of maid cafés, as well as to encourage customers to pay extra for the privilege of a hug or a picture. Alongside the maids using fake names, customers are not allowed to ask them for their social media information, their address, or their phone number.
They were designed to end loneliness
After Japan’s economic crash of the 1980s, many of the Otaku (a name used in Japan to describe gamers and anime enthusiasts, often male and of a certain age range) were lonely. To combat this we saw an increase in maid cafés as somewhere this community could go to experience social interaction and pay for the privilege, boosting the economy.
Many couples go as a date
While you’ll still find many Otaku in the maid cafés in Japan, you’ll also find couples there. While the attentive service and attractiveness of the women who work there can be compared to Hooters in the US, the general novelty of the experience and the specificity of the aesthetic gives cafés a much more universal appeal, meaning that you’ll often find couples and families visiting.
The concept blew up largely because of TV series Densha Otoko
The Japanese drama series Densha Otoko followed the story of an Otaku who gets involved when a drunk man harassed various women on a train, and then begins dating one of the women. One of the primary locations for the show was the Pinafore maid café. This promoted the concept to the general public, and they became more popular as a consequence.
The cafés can be much more expensive than you might expect
Going to a traditional café, you can expect to pay for your food and drink. Sometimes, there will be a service fee or you’ll be expected to leave a tip. As the maid cafés are an experience, however, you’re expected to pay for a lot more including a time charge, a seating charge and even for pictures or specific experiences you request.
It is not a sexual profession
While comparisons have been drawn between the maids at cafés and geishas (they are both entertainers known for primarily serving men), these are completely separate professions. There are misconceptions about both roles, and people sometimes assume they are also sex workers. Although there are recorded instances of this taking place, it is not common, and as a rule maid cafés do not offer sexual services.
Parents are often not supportive of the work
Part of the reason behind utilizing fake names in the cafés is so the maids can keep it a secret from their families. While it isn’t technically sex work, being a maid is often frowned upon due to the sexualized outfits and the way in which they have to serve men. As such, many maids will hide their profession from their relatives.
You can get bonuses
While there is a hierarchy in place and the pay scale may increase with that hierarchy (as well as attracting more customers to you based on reputation and the outfit that aligns with your status), you can also be awarded ‘best maid’. This is due to your performance and you can get bonuses for great performance, just like many other jobs.
Maid cafés massively boost the economy
Due to the fact that it can be very lucrative to run a maid café and there are so many of them (often scattered in tourist destinations like Tokyo), maid cafés contribute massively to the Japanese economy. In one year alone the maid café industry brought 1.6 billion yen – over $11 million US – into the economy.
Maid cafés are a result of French occupation
The first ever French concept maid café opened in Japan during a time of French occupation in 1692. While they were closed quickly soon after as the French left Japan, the love of French cuisine and French-style maid attire spread through the country and had a resurgence in the late 90s and early 2000s with the first permanent maid café opening in 2001.
You can find maids on the streets too
Maid cafés often utilize techniques we find mainly in nightclubs in the US to promote their business, including customer acquisitors. These will be maids who will stand on the street, trying to attract customers into the cafés, fully dressed in their maid attire and behaving in the same way they would in the café, referring to customers as masters.
The treatment of maids can often be appalling
Specifically in regards to the maids who work on the streets to attract customers, they experience a lot of workplace mistreatment including not being allowed toilet breaks or lunch breaks. As well as the long hours without a break, oftentimes their bosses will hire spotters to keep an eye on them and reprimand them if they’re caught checking their phones.
There have been maid café turf wars
While this may seem beyond the realm of belief, maid cafés are actually very profitable, and owning them or operating within the network places people in a part of a wider power structure. Bosses of individual cafés will go far to assert their dominance, even kidnapping maids from rival cafés, and having violent fights that have even taken lives.
Bosses have been known to abuse their power
From accounts of former maids at these cafés, bosses have been exposed for abusing the power they have over staff. One former maid anonymously recalled her experience at a café, sharing that she had been forced to clip her boss’ toenails (amongst other things) as punishment for not fulfilling targets or working hard enough.
Some customer requests are very strange
Maids may need permission from the boss to quit
Due to the enormous power that the bosses of the maid cafés hold, in some instances the maids will have to request to quit. Their bosses can then deny this request, and if maids just leave without permission to do so they can be tracked down and forced to come back or face punishment for leaving.
Not every guest enjoys the theatrics
While maid cafés may be at the top of the must-do lists for tourists visiting Japan, many have reported feeling less than happy when they actually get there. In fact, many have said it feels uncomfortable, due to the presence of single men who attend to form relationships with the maids, and that they have found the dancing, costumes, and performance cringe-inducing.
Some are actually operating illegally
There has been a recent crackdown in Japan on maid cafés. This is due to the fact that adult entertainment restaurants are only allowed to operate until 1 AM. However, regular restaurants whose primary focus is to serve food can open later. Recently, business authorities have deemed certain maid cafés as adult entertainment, meaning staying open later than 1 AM is illegal.
Other niche cafés exist
While the popularity of maid cafés has led to butler cafés, there have also been niches within these two industries that have gained prevalence in recent years. Cat cafés (much the same as maid cafés, except maids wear cat ears) have become more popular, as has a macho cafés in which only muscular men are hired and expected to carry guests.
They’ve been very controversial in other countries
While you’ll find hundreds of maid cafés in Japan, they are much less common internationally. When one opened in Seoul there was a public outcry, and the recently opened maid café in Manchester, UK has drawn a lot of attention with local politicians actually turning to Twitter to criticize the concept. It’s been called “Hooters for incels.”
The food is often unimpressive
Reviews of the maid cafés online (especially by tourists) will claim that while the food is presented adorably, it is in fact not very good. They’ve criticized the food calling it “average” and “underwhelming”. If you’re not looking just to take pictures of the food and enjoy the experience, it might be best to find a local spot that’s a little more focused on taste.
