Photo from lovelycomplex.net

Hey guys!

So I’ve been really excited to write about this topic because it hits close to home for me. I finally wanted to write about my life as a maid… in a maid cafe.

It should come as no surprise to you that I’m pretty vocal about the fact that I work and manage a Maid Cafe. But let’s backtrack a little. I get asked all the time, “What is a Maid Cafe?” Well, I’m about to school you on Maid Cafe 101.

Maid Cafes originated from Akihabara, Japan and it’s basically an actual cafe, but with a fun role play twist. The waitresses are dressed in maid uniforms and act as “servants” (to a degree) and the guests are their “masters” or “mistresses.”

So what do you do in a Maid Cafe? Well in the authentic ones, since it’s an actual cafe, you can order food. The maids will usually decorate your plate in a very cutesy manner and power up your food. And by power up, I don’t mean any weird Dragonball Z or Street Fighter reference. They do it in a very “moe” fashion. Moe (pronounced mo-eh) refers to the adoration of young or innocent-looking female characters. So as you can see, a lot of this culture is derived from anime.

Aside from eating, your maids will usually entertain you by playing various games with you. At my maid cafe, we love to play jenga. We’ve all played so much jenga that we’re pretty much jenga masters.

(Ok, not really, but that game is the shit. Just saying.)

Last but not least, my most favorite aspect of the cafe are the performances. The maids usually dance or sing for the guests, making it like a dinner and show kind of feel.

Group pic! 😀

I’ve been doing this for 3 years now and I absolutely love it. It’s fun to play a character and basically make people smile all day. And now as a manager, I get to coordinate the shows and hire all the wonderful staff. It’s a pretty good gig, if I say so myself.

But most importantly, working in maid cafe made me realize a lot about myself. You see, through college, I always felt I needed to have this professional face on all the time. When my friends would ask me what I wanted to do in the future, I always said the typical answer of any Comm major or Journalism major… “OH I want to work in PR.” or “Oh, I want to do something in entertainment… like work in E! or Entertainment Tonight.” I started to feel my professional self was so void of anything I truly loved, which was my geeky side. I’ve been attending anime conventions for over 11 years now and even if I wasn’t working for one, I’d still be an attendee.

Anime conventions to me are a place where I can just be myself. Growing up, people always made fun of me for liking this “Asian stuff,” but at the conventions, I feel like I can be myself and no one will judge me. (Well, almost. But you get my point.)

I think the best part of working at a Maid Cafe is the people you work with. I would not be having as much fun as I am if it weren’t for the other maids and hosts (the guys). I’ve learned a lot from them and we’ve become a happy, dysfunctional family.

If you want to understand more and see all of this for yourself, go to one! Maid Cafes are very popular nowadays and they’re not only in Japan anymore. Just from experience, a lot of anime conventions or anime clubs here in the U.S. have their own Maid Cafe. I encourage you to see this for yourself.

Have you ever visited a Maid Cafe? Do you work at one too?! Let me know by leaving a comment. 🙂

-Alice