Filed under: Restaurants, Food Oddities, North America

The only cartoon-themed restaurants that I've eaten at have been at theme parks and the only memorable one was Marvel Mania at Universal Studios, Hollywood. It has since closed down (probably because the food wasn't that great), but it was kind of entertaining to have Spidey hanging out at the dinner table. Perhaps drawing inspiration from that one selling point - that it is fun to sit with the characters - from such themed restaurants, a new cartoon-themed restaurant has opened up in Toronto that takes the theme further.

iMaid Cafe is a cosplay restaurant, which basically means that all the staff members are dressed in costumes and play a certain role. In this particular case, that role is of a maid from Japanese anime cartoons. "I call them maids not waitresses," said 24-year old Aaron Wang, the owner of the restaurant who is originally from Beijing. "They smile a lot and they are cute. I want somebody cute like the characters from cartoons -- big eyes, long hair and young."

Feedback from customers over the past few weeks has been nothing but positive, as both men and women come to enjoy the costumes and the atmosphere.