“WHAT are you doing here?” is how you can expect to be greeted by wait staff when walking into one of Japan’s Tsundere cafes.
If there are two things for which Japan is famous, it is providing outstanding service and at times having some pretty weird interests. So-called Tsundere cafes – where waitresses in maid outfits are supposed to treat you like dirt – fall firmly into the latter category.
Source: Facebook/SubaToki Cafe
Next month, Singaporeans will get the “pleasure” of attending their very own pop up Tsundere experience organised by SubaToki Cafe.
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“Want to get insults and abuse hurled at you while you dine? Here’s your lucky chance to get that treatment you’ve always been dreaming of at our very own Tsundere Cafe~!” reads the Facebook event being held on Feb 24.
“Popularised by visual novel Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, ‘tsundere’ characters are cold, even mean at first, but gradually become clingy,” according to Kotaku. “It’s all somewhat masochistic, but the unpredictable nature of the tsundere events makes them popular with customers.”
The experience at SubaToki in Singapore will set customers back 20 Singaporean dollars (US$15) if they get in early, or $25 (US$19) after Feb 1.
Photography is banned in the cafe, so they won’t be able to document the bizarre experience either.
Alongside cruelty, lasagne, pasta and red velvet cake are on the set menu. Don’t necessarily except that wait staff will get the orders correct, however.
“In there you are treated like dirt. You are constantly insulted,” one punter wrote of the experience in Akihabara, Tokyo in 2016. “They’ll get your order wrong intentionally and then when you get up to leave, they’ll beg and be nice! All in all a very interesting experience!”
Source: Facebook/SubaToki Cafe
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SubaToki offers a “Tokubetsu Service List” where customers can pay an additional $5 to be fed, receive a massage, or a dekopin (forehead flick).
But the restaurant warns: “as insults and vocal abuse will be hurled at you during your stay, we would greatly appreciate your tolerance and restraint from retorting with our staff … the management has the right to remove customers who get aggressive at any point of time.”
As Kotaku assures: “It’s all a gag, and the customers are in on it.”
