Maid Cafe Tokyo Japan: An Experience You Can’t Miss!
If you seek unique things to do in Tokyo, Maid Cafe is a fun choice. This article is my brief guide to maid cafes and my experience.
What are maid cafes?
Maid cafe is a typical cafe where the female staff wears the costumes of the “maids” in the comics. Blond hair, blue eyes, fair skin, pink lips, and smiles.
In Tokyo, you can find most of the maid cafes in Akihabara. This area is a paradise for Japanese electronic goods and an excellent location for Otaku – anime enthusiasts.
Some famous maid cafes in Akihabara:
- Cure Maid Cafe: This was the first maid cafe in Akihabara in 2001. The cafe has a Victorian theme.
- Pinafore
- maidreamin
- @homecafe
Everything in the maid cafe is decorated with pink tones and cute images. You can notice them from small objects such as cups, pens, or pictures of cute animals.
The story of Maid Cafes
There’s a story behind the start of Maid Cafes.
In modern Japanese society, Japanese life is highly stressful, with many people feeling depressed, overwhelmed, and lonely with no one to share with.
Seizing the situation, Maid Cafe – a cafe with “maids” was born to serve the needs of communicating and making friends of people under the pressure of work.
Usually, they would come here on weekends or for free time just for an hour to talk to the “maid.”
Visiting Maid cafe, customers need to follow specific rules to protect the maids from going beyond the limit.
For example, the girls here are entirely anonymous, with no real names. And some places don’t allow guests to take photos with them.
Maid cafe rules
- Guests cannot physically touch the maids.
- Guests are not allowed to take photos of maids, except for a fee. However, you can take pictures of food and drinks.
- Cannot ask personal information or phone numbers of maids
My trip to maid cafes in Tokyo
“Visiting Akihabara, don’t miss maid cafes!” My friends told me when they knew that I was coming to Tokyo.
It was my third time visiting Tokyo, but the city still had many things that I hadn’t discovered. And the maid cafe was one of them. So, curious, I went to Akihabara district to give it a try.
Walking around Akihabara, I saw a few “maid” characters on the streets. They stood outside the shop to distribute leaflets and introduced themselves.
Cure Maid Cafe
- Address: Japan, 〒101-0021 Tokyo, Chiyoda City, Sotokanda, 1 Chome−2−7 オノデン本店 4F ジーストア・アキバ
- Opening hours: 11 am – 7 pm
I decided to visit Cure Maid Cafe first. It’s said to be the first maid cafe in Akihabara. The original one.
The concept of having girls wearing suggestive maid-inspired attire while overacting feels a bit of a strange mix to me. Luckily, I didn’t feel comfortable there.
The cafe was cozy and had cute decorations, and the waitresses wore French-maid costumes. I ordered Omurice (Japanese Omelette Rice), and my dish had a cute drawing with ketchup.
This cafe is a bit different from my expectation. It’s more or less just a regular cafe. However, the price was reasonable, and the tea and dessert were decent. Omurice was not the best, though.
@home cafe
- Address: Japan, 〒101-0021 Tokyo, Chiyoda City, Sotokanda, 1 Chome−11−4 3F～7F ミツワビル
- Opening hours: 10 am – 8 pm
I visited @home cafe with a friend the next day. We were pretty impressed with the building, and each floor has its theme and decoration. So if you happen to find a long line, keep going up the staircase until you find a less busy floor.
After a short wait, we were assigned a table and a “maid.”
The experience was about 1 hour long, and we ordered some kawaii food and drinks and purchased a photo opportunity with the maids.
Our maid was very energetic, cute, and friendly. We love the part about doing a magic spell and the drawing on our dish. Unfortunately, we didn’t play any games with our maid but did see others playing games.
My thoughts
Overall, I enjoyed this experience and would recommend it. However, I prefer @home cafe more than Cure Maid cafe. There’re more things to do, and you can interact with the maids more.
Also, it’s better to visit a maid cafe with a friend so that you have someone to talk to when waiting between interactions.
We saw a lot when we visited Tokyo. But we certainly did not see any Maid Cafes. What an interesting concept. Good to read there are rules in place to protect the “Maids”. We will have to find one of the Maid Cafes on our next visit.
Leave it to Japan to come up with such amazing things. The Maid Cafe is awesome and it is great that the maids are anonymous and protected. This is truly an awesome way to allow people who are stressed out to enjoy company. I visited an Owl cafe when I was in japan but not the Maid cafe. I do plan to visit Japan again sometimes so will definitely consider this.
What a brilliant concept! It is sometimes better to talk to strangers when we’re stressed. They pass no judgment. All they do is listen. Sometimes, that’s just what we need. I believe this Maid Cafe concept will flourish in other countries as well. But it should always be true to its Japanese origin, with ‘Maids’ protected and secured and with patrons bound to certain rules.
It’s exactly this reason why I want to visit Japan! There are so many quirky sights to see like this, and now I have to add maid cafes on the list. I have to see this in person one day and will take your tips.
I also did a maid cafe when I went to Japan and agree that it was really Surreal. The thing that intrigued me the most was the different variety of people (locals) that were interacting with them. Great for people watching and something unique to Japan.
This is very very interesting. The concept sounds like a contemporary version inspired by modern Geisha, in entertaining, and playing host to the guests. I’ve never heard of this, so thanks for introducing this to me. I’m going to try to find more about its history. I’m really intrigued now. At home maid cafe sounds interesting. Good to know about the paid photo-op with the maid.
What an interesting concept and it’s so good to know more about it. I like the fact that maids are protected and no one can go overboard. I haven’t been to Japan but visiting a maid cafe would certainly feature in our plans when we do visit.
We have never maid cafe in Japan but will check them out during our next trip. Thank you for giving us an insight into what to expect. Happy to know that there are existing rules to protect them as well.
Hey hey, I really liked the post, it got me interested. But, I wanted to ask, do maids speak english by any chance? :)
Hi Gloria,
The place I went to couldn’t speak much English, but you can try to learn a few Japanese on your trip and it would be handy! https://www.expatolife.com/basic-japanese-phrases-words/