Japanese style Hari Cafe Haru Cafe

Report / Deng Huagui

Photography / Cai Wanting (special appointment)

The coffee shop shows up only once every two or three months and has only appeared four times since October last year. When it opened for business last month, most of the waiters in the store were young foreigners wearing Japanese bathrobes to entertain customers. What kind of coffee shop is this?

August, when the sun is burning, is the hot season in many places, and it is also the time for many Japanese to put on cool bathrobes (yukata). In a local coffee shop, the waiters who wear Japanese bathrobes back and forth to entertain customers are mostly blond young foreigners. What kind of coffee shop is this?

The makeshift coffee shop, called Haru Cafe, was originally a novel idea of Xie Peipei, 31, a female owner who runs a local Harbin grocery store. Of the 18 waiters hired there, only one is Singaporean, and the rest are from overseas, including young people from Belgium, Britain, Sweden, Australia, Japan and other countries. The main selling point of the coffee shop is to let these young foreign students wear bathrobes or other Japanese clothes that match the theme to attract local Hari people to patronize.

Customers also wear Japanese bathrobes.

The mobile Hari Cafe actually shows up only once every two or three months, and has only appeared four times since October last year. In the middle of last month, the party held on the fifth floor of * SCAPE Youth Centre with the theme of summer celebration attracted many local customers who wore Japanese bathrobes to match the theme.

Some of them come with friends to catch a glimpse of handsome young waiters in bathrobes. There are also some local standard Hari fans who are "armed" to match the summer theme of the coffee shop, wearing a cool bathrobe with Japanese clogs, looking cool and breezy.

The waiter is going to be on camera.

Among the foreign waiters wearing Japanese bathrobes are Anthony (16) from Belgium and Edward (16) and Jason (14) from England. All three are studying in overseas International Home School (Overseas Family School). Although they don't know much about Japanese culture, they are willing to come part-time with a fun mentality.

Jason is involved for the first time, while Anthony and Edward are regular waiters in the coffee shop. They all said in unison that working in a coffee shop can meet different people from all levels of society and learn a lot of new things, which is a good opportunity to accumulate work experience.

Since this coffee shop appears only once every two or three months and is open for about six hours each time, it is much easier compared with other part-time workers. As Anthony said, it is not so much a job as a good learning experience.

What do you have in Hari Cafe?

Hari Cafe sells a variety of Japanese snacks, fruits, pasta, green tea and other drinks. Customers present can ask to take a picture with waiters in special clothes or play cardboard games with them.

The entry price of the coffee shop is 15 yuan, which can be used in exchange for food or goods in the shop. You need to register in advance to order.

Patronize for eye-pleasing waiters

He Zelian, a 28-year-old technician who first visited the coffee shop, asked three friends to come with him in a Japanese-style bathrobe after hearing the news on Facebook a few weeks ago. Only a few minutes after he and his friends stepped into the coffee shop, they were attracted by the lively atmosphere of the shop, and found the concept very novel and interesting, and the gimmicks were big and charismatic. He, who loves Japanese tradition and popular culture, also said that this is a good opportunity to get in touch with Japanese culture and other Hari enthusiasts, and he will definitely come back if he has the opportunity.

Shen Yiting, a 15-year-old student, revealed that the coffee shop hired foreign students as waiters, which was a big selling point to attract her to come. She is not a cosplay fan herself, but likes to watch other people pretend to be cosplay characters, and the foreign waiters in the store make her feel very pleasing to the eye. She is quite satisfied with the overall service in the store, but thinks the food in the store is a little expensive.

Hao Lingxuan (18) and Liang Huixian (18), two resident students from Indonesia, think that the coffee shop is not as organized as expected, the food has been ordered, but the food has not been served, and the decoration of the coffee shop itself is quite simple. Therefore, I hope that the industry can improve it.

Xie Peipei, the main planner of Hari Cafe, said that since this was the first time that the theme of the former male and female cafe had been changed to a summer theme, there had been some minor problems in coordination and planning. However, she and her team are constantly improving, hoping to provide a better communication platform for local Hari fans in the future.

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Gimmick Xu é t ó u:gimmicks

Disguised as Qi á o zhuzhuang ng: disguise

Eye-pleasing ng yellown: be pleasing to the eye