Maid Cafes (US/Japanese Style)

Submitted by takegimi on Thu, 2008/06/26 - 11:28.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/dining/25maid.html
Excerpt below:

AS tea services go, the one at Royal/T here is definitely of the down-the-rabbit-hole variety. In an industrial-chic cafe surrounded by Japanese pop art, an American woman dressed as an English maid recently served French tea in a style that was straight out of Tokyo.

“If there is anything I can do to make your meal more enjoyable or delicious, please let me know immediately,” said Kat Steele, in frilly white knee-high stockings and taut pigtails, as she set down a glass pot of lemon verbena tea. Then she curtsied and pranced away.

The first Japanese-style “meido kafue,” or maid cafe, to open in the United States is an odd hybrid of cultural influences, but its roots are specific. The idea came from Japanese video games where the main characters worked as maids in a restaurant. That spun off in 2002 as a Tokyo cafe where hardcore gamers and anime fans, known as “otaku,” or nerds, were doted upon by maids who called customers “master” and would even blow on food to cool it off. Soon, the Akihabara shopping district in Tokyo, where computer and comic-book stores proliferate, was awash in maid cafes, maid hair salons, even maid ear-cleaning parlors...

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