Interest
New Maid Café Opens in Richmond, B.C.
posted on by Gia Manry
The Calgary Herald newspaper reports that a new maid cosplay café has opened this month in Richmond, British Columbia, near the city of Vancouver. The Magnetic Café features dishes from a variety of countries throughout East Asia (including Japan, Korea, and China) along with drinks, free Wi-Fi, and staff dressed in a variety of costumes. According to the Calgary Herald, those costumes can vary from maids to schoolgirls to policewomen, depending on the week.
The Magnetic Café's official website (available in English and Chinese) bills itself as "the one and only Cosplay cafe in Vancouver." Past attempts at maid or cosplay cafés include the iMaid Café in Scarborough, Ontario, which opened in 2006 and closed in 2007 due to unpaid back rent. A maid café and art gallery called the Royal/T Café opened in Culver City, California in 2008 and is still in operation today.
Maid cafés have become increasingly popular in Japan since the early 2000s, as have manga and anime revolving around maids or maid cafés, such as Maid Sama!, He is my Master, and Mahoromatic. In an effort to stand out from all the other cafés, new establishments have experimented with male servants, Gothic-themed outfits, waiters in schoolboy uniforms, and a boys-love theme. One maid café even offered visitors the chance to dub a short anime. Additionally, some cafés estabish tie-ins with anime or manga franchises, including a Gundam Café, a Nodame Cantabile café, and others.
Images © The Magnetic Café
