Maids promoting maid cafes in Akihabara

Cosplay restaurants, are theme restaurants and pubs that originated in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan around the year 2000. They include maid cafés and butler cafés, where the service staff dresses in cosplay, as elegant maids, or as butlers. Such restaurants and cafés have quickly become a staple of Japanese otaku culture. Compared to the service at normal café, the service at maid cafés invoke a slightly different atmosphere. The maids treat the customers as their master his or her home, rather than merely a customer at a café.

The maids are often dressed in a combination of lolita fashion and french maid-styled uniforms in attempt to look "moe". They also act as cute and "moe" as possible. Sometimes the maid outfit is augmented with cat or bunny ears. At maid cafes most service staff members are female and male jobs are typically limited to bar-backing and janitorial duties.

When a customer enters the café, the maids typically give a extraordinarily humble greeting such as "Welcome home, Master" in order to play the role of a house servant. In order to enhance the illusion that the customer is indeed her master, they often serve the customer in a very humble fashion. For example staff sometimes kneel to mix sugar or milk in teas or other drinks. The purpose of the maid cafés and their service is to make customers feel as though they were at home, and to allow them to relax. Although exemplary customer service is typical of Japan, maid cafés take special care to pamper their patrons.