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Japan’s Macho Café: Beefcakes for Everyone!

Last updated: 16 June 2020

If you prefer muscle men over kawaii maids, Macho Café has just the menu you’ve been searching for! While Japan is very committed to its theme café culture, offering maids, butlers, vampires, and cats to share a cup of coffee with, the concept of cafés and restaurants being visited not primarily for their food, but rather for the people who serve it is quite common in this day and age. One of the most prominent examples might be Hooters and the famous tank-top and hot pants uniform of its waitresses. Japanese maid cafés follow a similar concept, albeit more focused on performance than on looks.

While everybody is welcome to find enjoyment in eating at these places, they initially started out as an experience geared towards a male audience. In recent years, a fair share of butler cafés, the gender-swapped, more elegant version of the classic maid café, have sprung up, there is one particular place in Tokyo that did replace the Hooter Girls with actual Macho Men - having them serve coffee and pancakes in tiny tank tops, so that everyone can admire their steeled bodies.

So, who are these Macho Men and what do they do? Mostly, they are very much the manifestation of the beefcake cliché: well-trained bodies, tight shirts, and generally very nice to look at – and all of that without being rude. They also do all the tasks you’d expect a macho to do: they open jars, they flex their muscles, and they strut around. Dining at Macho Café is one big, enjoyable performance of beefcakes.

It’s not just about looks, though. The Macho Café does, of course, have a variety of different dishes and beverages to offer. For those who want the genuine macho experience, we recommend dishes such as a healthy bowl of oatmeal, broccoli, and chicken – these do wonders for muscle growth! And everyone who is too dazzled by the waiters to care about their own muscles might enjoy the classic pancakes for 1,500 yen which come with whipped cream, squeezed out of a tiny bottle by a very strong man.
For everyone brave enough, we have a special menu recommendation: the ominous Wall of Meat, or ‘niku no kabe,’ as it is called in Japanese. This peculiar treat can be enjoyed for 4,000 yen and is exactly what it promises: multiple beefcakes forming a wall around you, parading their muscles. Along with food. We think.

The Macho Café isn’t open regularly but rather on special dates and occasions, such as select weekends or national holidays. Because of this, you can be sure that there will be a long line of people wanting to make this beefcake experience for themselves whenever the café is open. These rare days are announced on the official homepage, so make sure to stay tuned!