Abutler café (Japanese:執事喫茶,Hepburn:shitsuji kissa) is a subcategory ofcosplay restaurant that originated inJapan. In these cafés, waiters dress asbutlers and serve patrons in the manner ofdomestic servants attending toaristocracy. Butler cafés proliferated in reaction to the popularity ofmaid cafés and serve as an alternative category of cosplay restaurant intended to appeal to femaleotaku.
Maid cafés, where waitresses dress asmaids to serve a primarily male clientele,[1] achieved widespread popularity in Japan in the early 2000s.[2] Butler cafés were conceived in response to their popularity, after entrepreneurs noted a rise in Internet message board postings from femaleotaku – devoted fans, particularly ofanime and manga – who had a negative perception of maid cafés, and who sought a "role-reversing alternative" to them.[2][3][4] Women expressed their desire for an establishment where they could seek male companionship in an environment that was less costly than ahost club, and more romantic and safe than anightclub.[3] Butlers were chosen as a male counterpart to maids, and to appeal tofairy tale princess fantasies.[3][5]
The first butler café, Swallowtail, opened in March 2005.[6] Swallowtail is located onOtome Road, a major shopping and cultural destination for femaleotaku inIkebukuro, Tokyo,[4] and was founded bymanagement consulting firm Oriental Corporation and the anime and manga goods chainK-Books.[4] In 2006, the café Butlers Café opened inShibuya, Tokyo.[3][6] Founded by former office worker Yuki Hirohata, Butlers Café employed a staff composed entirely ofWestern men,[7] and allowed patrons to practiceEnglish with the butlers.[3][8] Butlers Café closed in December 2018.[9] In 2011, the butler café Refleurir opened as the first butler café inAkihabara, Tokyo,[10] before closing in 2013.[11] Severaldansō (cross-dressing) cosplay cafés with a butler theme operate in Akihabara, in which female servers dress as male butlers.[12]
Outside of Japan, notable butler cafés include Chitty Mood, which operates out ofTaipei City Mall inTaipei,Taiwan,[13] and Lan Yu Guan European Tea Restaurant (formerly named Michaelis), which opened inNorth District, Taichung, Taiwan in 2012.[14] The first butler café in South Korea opened inYeonnam-dong,Seoul in 2024, and gained popularity through social networking services.[15] In North America, Europe, and Oceania,pop-up butler cafés have been hosted atanime conventions, includingAnime Expo in the United States,[16] Hücon in Turkey,[17] andSMASH! in Australia, which was the first anime convention to host a butler café.[18]
The central concept of a butler café is that the customer is treated as an aristocrat who has returned to their home fortea, where they are waited on by a personal butler.[7] While maid cafés typically promote the physical attractiveness of the servers as their major selling point, butler cafés devote significant resources to environment, ambiance, and high quality service.[4] Customers are "welcomed home" upon entering and referred to with honorary titles, with female customers referred to asojōsama ("milady") orohimesama ("princess")[1] and male customers asbocchan ("young lord") ordannasama ("master").[19]
High-quality food is served – the menu of Swallowtail, for example, was developed by Paul Okada, the food and beverage director at theFour Seasons Tokyo[5] – and the interior of the restaurant is typically designed to resemble anEnglish country house ormanor house with imported and custom furniture.[4] Butlers may even take the time to inform the customer of the style of the decor and thoroughly describe the items on the menu.[19]English-styleafternoon tea is the most commonly-served food at butler cafés, including cakes, scones, sandwiches, and tea served in fineporcelain cups,[1][19] which may also be the café's own custom ceramics.[19]
Men employed as butlers can be as young as 18 or as old as 80,[4][19] and receive extended training in tea preparation,etiquette, and restaurant service standards.[19][4] The training process at Swallowtail takes several months, and requires applicants to pass a test based on hotel restaurant standards.[19] Job titles for butlers correspond to those of household staff, including "house steward" for the most senior manager and "footman" for servers.[20] Butlers also occasionally appear in musicals, stage plays and concerts organized by the café, and sell souvenirs and CDs.[20]
Photography is typically not permitted in butler cafés, though Butlers Café offered it as an additional service: services offered included the "Lift Me Up Photo", where a photo is taken of the butler physically lifting the customer; "Cinderella Time," where the customer receives bubbles, a tiara, and a silver bell on a platter; and "Study English," where customers receive a notebook to exchange notes in English with their butler during each visit.[8] Butler cafés typically enforce acode of conduct for employees and customers that forbids certain activity, such as the exchange of personal information or meetings outside of the café space.[8][21]
Though Japanese and non-Japanese butler cafés are broadly similar in terms of reservation methods, service flow, general image, and emphasis on interaction between butlers and customers, there are several noteworthy differences across countries and regions.[22] Taiwanese butler cafés are reported as having less rigorous preparatory training and a greater focus on on-the-job training, and use less luxurious European-style furniture as a result of limited investor funding.[22] Further, as Chinese lackshonorifics that clearly distinguish between upper and lower social positions, the positional relationship between the butler and customer is established through the "performance" of the butler at Taiwanese butler cafés.[22] Butler cafés at Western anime conventions are typically run by volunteers and enthusiasts, rather than by rigorously-trained service professionals.[23]
Butler cafés enjoy popularity amongfujoshi – a name given to fans ofboys' love (BL), a genre of male-male romance fiction aimed at women.[4][8] In Japan, butler cafés are not specifically aimed at fans of BL, but rather are broadly considered a form ofotome muke (乙女向け,lit. "for maidens", a term for media aimed at women). They have nevertheless gained popularity among somefujoshi, who projecthomosocial andhomoerotic fantasies through their interactions with butlers.[24] Conversely, the relationship between butler cafés and the BL fandom is more pronounced in Taiwan, where butler cafés emerged in direct response to the growth in popularity of BL.[24]
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Butler cafés have been cited as an example of the influence ofanime andmanga on Japanese culture and commerce, with fictionalized depictions of butler cafés in anime and manga having popularized them as a concept and made them major destinations forotakutourists in Japan.[25] Patisserie Swallowtail, a Swallowtail-brandedpâtisserie, has produced limited-edition baked goods in collaboration with several popular franchises and outlets, including the anime seriesTokyo Ghoul,[26]Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun,[27] andHenNeko;[28] the video game seriesDanganronpa[29] andPersona 3;[30] and the department storeTokyu Hands.[31] The anime seriesBeastars launched apop-up butler café in 2019.[32] Butler cafés outside of Japan serve a similar function of simulating Japanese culture for anotaku andJapanophile audience, with butler cafés in Taiwan using Japanese words in greetings, and hosting events such asyukata festivals andkaraoke competitions.[33] Butler cafés are further cited as representing the widening ofcosplay, from a hobby that occurs exclusively inotaku spaces such asanime conventions, to an activity that occurs in public life.[25]
Anime and manga scholarSusan J. Napier argues that butler cafés represent a widening ofotaku culture to be inclusive of girls and women, but notes that the popularity of butler cafés does not necessarily represent a loosening of the culture's gender roles and expectations, stating that "maid and butler cafés, if anything, are reinforcing gender distinctions."[2] Manga artistKeiko Takemiya "does not place great cultural significance" on butler cafés, but argues that they "allow Japanese women a chance to be served and escape their traditional role of serving men."[2] Claire Gordon ofSlate cites the all-Western staff of Butlers Café as functioning as a form of fantasy fulfillment, allowing its largely Japanese clientele to interact with a "hyperbolic, hypermannered extreme" of a stereotypical alluring Western male.[34]
In 2006, Swallowtail reported serving more than 1,000 customers per month.[4] Butlers Café reported having 2,000 regular customers at its peak,[3] and 3,000 customers in its first month of operation.[4] Swallowtail reports that 80 percent of their customers are female, with women in their 20s and 30s forming the majority of their clientele.[4]
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