(Maid Cafe) at-home cafe Akihabara Main — Restaurant in Tokyo

So you are in Akihabara and are being accosted every 5 minutes by girls dressed in cutsey maid costumes that want you to enter their cafes. Whilst the whole concept was a little off putting my friends and I decided we needed to try one before we could judge. As we felt a desire to not wake up in a bath of ice minus several key organs we decided to go for one of the "well known" more reputable establishments we could find.

@Home had several floors each with a cafe and you can choose which one you enter(I recommend which ever had the shortest queue).

The one we entered had rows of seating facing a small stage, presumably used for performances occasionally, but we only saw it being used for the official photographs with the maids.

Once you are in the madness begins as a friendly Maid explains the menu. We opted for desert set menus which included a drink and a picture with the Maid of your choice. We were actually presented with a cork board menu of today's maids to choose from - a bit weird, so we decided discretion was the better part of valour and chose the Maid who staring at us holding the board.

After a while the food and drinks arrived and were actually very good, particularly the enormous deserts. We were instructed in the muy muy cute ritual and hand gestures that we had to carry out with the maid that delivered the food much to everyone's amusement.

Every so often a different maid we to the stage and would call down the different customers that had requested pictures with her. Props were provided and a cute pose suggested...

The place was fairly busy with what appeared to be regular customers - we even saw a couple leave after their hour slot was up and then immediately come back in clutching their binders of maid pictures.

So the big question, was it exploitative? The weird thing is as the power dynamic actually inverted - the customers, despite being addressed as masters or princesses did what they were damn well told by the maids. Strict rules are in place about no unauthorized photos of the maids, and certainly no physical interaction. Having said that an open question remains as to whether this just serves as a gateway type place to the more morally ambiguous hostess bars and beyond.

All in all check it out, it might not quite be what you expected, and worst case scenario you can get a pretty tasty ice...

I went to this maid cafe last week with two friends (one of whom was Japanese), it was the first time I had been to this kind of establishment and I was very much looking forward to it and was extremely disappointed. First of all I would like to say that the experience itself was not unpleasant, the maid are very nice, the food is cute, etc... If I put 1 star it is because of the management of the reservations which were disastrous, in all my life and all the countries I visited, I never saw such a management of the reservations. We were 3, as I said one of my friends was Japanese, so there were no communication problems with the staff. When we arrived we made a reservation on the tablet at the entrance, we were warned that there was a 1h30 wait, it was not a problem, we went for a walk. After 1h30 we came back and we had to wait another 1h30 in the cold before we could go back in, that's a total of 3h waiting time. The problem was that it was difficult to find a place for 3 people, which I can understand, but the staff made NO effort to try and find us a place, instead every time one or two places became available, the staff let other people in before us, despite our reservation and the fact that we had arrived well before and waited for a long time outside, it's just unacceptable. They let almost 10 people in before us, without ever trying to offer us a seat. I was very upset, but I didn't want to embarrass my Japanese friend. After an hour and a half of waiting in the cold, we still asked our friend to say something to the staff and miraculously, 5 minutes after complaining, they found us a seat! This is really the worst experience I've had with a reservation, what's the point of accepting a reservation for 3 people if you are unable to respect it? What's the point of telling us to come back after 1.5 hours if you haven't made any effort to free up the seat we reserved and, above all, how can you dare to let so many people pass in front of us who have been waiting for our turn for 3 hours with a reservation? It was a great lack of respect, and my worst experience with a restaurant since I live in Japan (4 months), whatever the reasons, the management of our reservation was a disaster and it's really...

This was the first and only maid cafe we went to, so I can’t compare to other cafes. My perspective is as a tourist who is not necessarily into ‘mae’ culture and just wanted to explore it with his wife.

There was a big queue when we entered. However we were told we could go to another floor and there was a smaller queue, so we did. It looks like every floor has it’s own theme but given we just wanted to experience it, went to the top floor. After a small wait (~10 minutes), we entered. Before being catered to, we were ignored for a very long period of time. I think it takes them a while to find a staff member who can cater to foreigners speaking English. Finally we’re given a seat and assigned a ‘maid’.

It’s a sweet concept with her writing cards for both of us, sweet-talking, calling master and princess. After a little bit more of this, we were served our coffees and then she asked what she could make for us. We didn’t have a list of what she could make, just anything. We said shiba and Rilakumma respectively not even sure she understood what we meant. However, she was able to draw beautiful shiba and rilakumma right there in front of us as if she had been trained for this specific ask. We asked her if we could take a photo of the drinks, and thankfully she said yes. We didn’t opt for the package of photo with maids. We took some photos while leaving of the sign too with permission. Make sure to not take any photos without their permission- they might ask you to leave the building.

As for the "disturbing" aspect of it, I prefer to not judge other cultures and understand there is the weird young girl fascination dynamic which exists. It's morally righteous for me to assume the girls there need my support for liberation, and doesn't seem any worse than say Hooters in America although with much more clothes.

Overall it’s fine to experience this, but wouldn't rave about it as ‘unmissable’. It’s one of the many quirky things in Japan, and At-Home is one of the first places where maid cafes originated so might as well stop by here if you’re...