If you’re out enjoying the fantasies and frills, don’t forget that they come at a very real price.
In many ways, Japan’s maid cafes are a smaller-scale, more relaxed version of the country’s hostess bars. At a maid cafe, the atmosphere is designed to feel less exclusive, the pressure to keep ordering isn’t as intense, and menu items are generally less expensive.
Still, maid cafes are, above all else, businesses, and so they’ll be happy to take as much of your money as you choose to exchange for their goods and services. As proof, consider this receipt from a branch of restaurant chain Afilia, located in Tokyo’s Shinjuku neighborhood. Afilia gets full marks for thorough theming, as the chain has a detailed backstory about a fantasy kingdom populated by mages, and presents its waitresses as students at the royal academy of magic. Dressed in costumes that are half-maid and half-anime magical girl, each has a fictional profile listing her favorite subject and school club membership, such as flying, transformation, or magical Pilates.
But all that theming can come at a very high price.
Let’s take a look through the lengthy list of items:
● Male customer charge: ￥1,100
● Male customer 30-minute time extension (8 times): ￥4,400
● Ueei: ￥1,200
● Photograph: ￥1,200
● Tsu-chan highball: ￥1,200
● The One Everyone Likes: ￥1,500
● Tsu-chan highball: ￥1,200
● Dom Perignon P2: ￥160,000
● Nina-chan: ￥1,000
● Dom Perignon Rose: ￥84,000
● Cocoa: ￥1,000
● Dom Perignon: ￥44,000
● Ame-chan: ￥1,200
● Strong Wind: ￥1,200
● Dom Perignon: ￥44,000
● Ame-chan: ￥1,200
● Meno-chan: ￥1,200
● Dom Perignon Rose: ￥84,000
● Dom Perignon: ￥44,000
It’s difficult to deduce exactly what some of the items are, thought the ones ending in -chan are ostensibly the names of waitresses the customer paid a surcharge to have spend time with him. Add it all up, and the bill came to a staggering 478,400 yen (US$4,120).
@URATAKAO, the Japanese Twitter user who shared the snapshot, insists that he merely found the receipt, and is not the big-spending diner who ran up the towering tab. As such, the identity of the big-spending champagne fan (we’re guessing he’s a fan, since he ordered six bottles of the stuff) remains unknown.
If you’re keen to see for yourself whether Afilia is really so wonderful as to be worth dropping a couple grand at, the chain has five branches in Tokyo, one in Osaka, one in Nagoya, and a final location in Saitama Prefecture’s Omiya. Just don’t forget to bring plenty of cash, or, alternatively, a modicum of restraint.
Related: Afilia
Source: Jin, Twitter/@URATAKAO