An exchange student in Japan got the idea to open a Soviet themed maid cafe serving Russian foods and offering a fun unique expericence that can't be found anywhere else in Tokyo.
See the shop and an Interview with the owner Nastyan who runs the ItaCafe
The owner has became well known online in Japan due to her passion for Japanese anime and cosplay.
A venture capitalist worked with her on the idea and used crowd funding to raise 3.2 million yen (approx $31k usd) to open the cafe.
The cafe food will be a unique draw since Russian food isn't prevalent in Tokyo and the aim to provide tasty food (which isn't always the aim of most maid cafes).
The servers will be Russian and they will stick to the tradition of most maid cafe of addressing the guests “goshujin-sama” (“master”).
A few key things the owner hope the ItaCafe will do is to help change the perceptions of Russia and Russians because typically Japanese just think is the weather and people are cold. It's not a fun place and people drink a lot of vodka. So she hopes to help change this misconcepted image of her country and people.
The goal is to make the cafe a place feel like a friendly second home where people can come to be with friends, enjoy good food and have lively converstaions about anime, games, etc.
Here is a link to the owners FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/itacafe25d/