Post-90s start a business and open a maid cafe to play with and help with their homework.

"Welcome home!" As soon as they entered the store, several girls in maid costumes greeted them warmly. The layout in the store is warm and comfortable, and there are posters of all kinds of animation on the wall, where guests are leisurely drinking afternoon tea and chatting about animation and games. This is a maid deacon cafe located on Bei Yijing Street in Shenyang. It was co-founded by Yan Tata, a post-90s girl, and her friend Zhimeng.

There are many maid deacon cafes in Japan, and they are also common elements in animation. As an anime fan, the first thing Yantata thought of when he had the idea of starting a business was to open a maid deacon cafe. "most of today's cafes are similar and lack characteristics. I think it's cool to open such a different shop." Yantata said that the name of the store "Cherry run's Store" is taken from the names of two Japanese male voice artists (dubbing actors) she likes.

Yan Tata graduated from China Medical University with a major in clinical pharmacy. After graduating, she changed jobs in hospitals and banks several times and finally decided to start her own business. The start-up capital was her savings of eight years as a part-time model.

In the winter of 2012, Yan Tata and Zhimeng braved the snow to find a house on the street, and found their present place after visiting more than half of Shenyang. At that time, it was still a beauty salon, and there was no notice of exchange, so she went straight in and asked whether it was out or not. "at that time, there was no coffee shop on this street, and the aunts nearby said that we two stupid kids might not be able to do business, but now that we have opened the 17th coffee shop here, we have driven the economy of the whole street." Yan Tata said with a smile.

In order to open a shop, they went to professional training courses to learn coffee making and baking techniques for half a year. While promoting them on Weibo, Wechat and post bars through the Internet, they conducted a lot of social surveys to understand young people's love of animation and their attitude towards maid shops. In May 2013, "Cherry run's Store" was officially put up for business.

"now there are a lot of people in cafes, and it's hard to survive without characteristics. Even anime cafes can't survive on this alone, otherwise, except for regular customers who really like it here, ordinary guests won't come again after they are fresh." For this point, Yan Tata saw very thoroughly, "the customers of our store are about 13-36 years old. Although the groups attracted are post-80s and post-90s, those who really have spending power are still post-80s."

In order to retain repeat customers, Yantata will not only train and improve the quality of maid etiquette, makeup, dance, animation culture, ordering, and other services, but also hold many characteristic theme activities, such as maid performances, interactive games, baking teaching, and theme week on Christmas, Halloween and other festivals.

For the screening of waiters in the store, Yan Tata is also very strict, in addition to appearance, understanding of animation culture, talent and so on are taken into consideration. At present, there are 62 waiters in the store, including 50 maids and 12 deacons, all of whom have their own talents, or are good at singing or dancing, most of them are college students. The cafe adopts a part-time shift system. Three or four people go to work every day. The schedule of waiters will also be posted on Weibo. Customers can choose the time to patronize according to their favorite waiters. At present, the main income of the store depends on catering, and the maid is charged 10 yuan an hour to play games with her. In addition, for junior and high school students, college maids can also help with their lessons, and the fee is cheaper than that of tutoring outside.

Since the beginning of this year, the cafe has set up a business to travel to Japan and set up a cooperation with an animation school in Tokyo, Japan, providing a seven-day dedicated line service for people who want to travel to Japan or take animation courses. In addition to day-to-day basic work, Yentata has also established a partnership with the mall to provide actors when it needs COSPLAY (short for Costume Play) to perform.

For both anime fans and maid cafes, Comic-Con is an opportunity not to be missed. "the preparation work before the comic book exhibition is very hard. In addition to preparing the things for the booth the next day, we also have to arrange the stage performance." Yan Tata said it is common to stay up late before Comic-Con to prepare until 4 o'clock the next morning.

Yan Tata believes that people who come here like animation and have similar interests, so they can easily become friends, and some guests will send gifts when they are not living in Shenyang. For those who look at the maid cafe with tinted glasses, Yentata thinks it's just a misconception that they don't understand this form.

In fact, this is to provide a party and leisure place for young people who like animation. Waiters wearing maid costumes is only an expression of animation culture, and the nature of work is no different from that of waiters in ordinary coffee shops.

Yantata said frankly that it took about a year and a half for the cafe to recover its cost, and the labor cost is very high, and now the monthly profit is about 10,000 yuan.

They decided to take the franchise route and planned to open a larger branch in Shenyang. At present, the branch in Dalian is already under renovation, and the branch in Harbin will open after the end of the year. They will visit the branch store once a month to train the staff to ensure that the operation of the franchise store is consistent with that of the head office.