J in Japan: The day I went to the Resident evil cafe and watched the waitresses dance to the Spice girls
When I'd first heard about the Resident evil cafe, I was excited. I love games. I love food. I love alcohol and I am a ma-HOOOO-sive Resident evil fan. So throw this together within an official Capcom endorsed establishment and Capcom have already got my money. I can indulge in four things I love without passing out on the floor with a half eaten pizza, an empty bottle of rum and my Resident evil 2 speed run on pause at 3 o' clock in the morning.
My friend and I had been in Shibuya for hours, having seen as many clothing stores, neon lights, over tanned girls in pink wigs and hood looking Japanese guys handing out flyer's that we could take. So we decided to take a moment to chill somewhere and figured what better place to do that than at THE RESIDENT EVIL CAFE!!
A word of advice for you if you plan on visiting this place: It's tucked away. It's easy to miss. You will more than likely walk around in circles trying to find. Even locals don't know where the damn place is. I asked a girl in H&M and a guy in Zara where the Resident evil cafe was (in really good Japanese might I add) and neither of them knew where it was. Upon finding out the Resident evil cafe was in 'the PARCO building', I asked a local where this PARCO place is, to which they toddled off and then shuffled back with a map of Shibuya - pointing to the hundreds of PARCO logos on the map. Fuck dis life.
Note: Take note of which PARCO building the Resident evil cafe is in. What I can recall is that it is in the one located in some random back alley, near to a Bathing ape store and right in front of a UNIQLO.
A long walk, a few wrong turns and an awkward conversation with the guy manning the elevator to the PARCO building later and we're on the 7th floor where the magic happens...or so we thought. The Resident evil cafe is the most boring looking restaurant on this floor. All of the other restaurants are open plan, allowing you to see inside. You can see the hustle and the bustle. You can hear the music blaring, customers laughing and engaging in conversation. Each restaurant is filled with life, except for the Resident evil cafe. Perhaps this was intentional. To show that all life in this place has either been shot by a member of S.T.A.R.S or infected and transformed into a shuffling mess by the T-Virus. But it diminished my spirits slightly and immediately put the thought in my head that 'This place could be shit'.
The cafe has a waiting / merch area which you are held in until you are given the okay to go into the restaurant, which you still cannot see at this point as it's behind a door - the windows of which are frosted. The girl at the desk of this waiting area asked what we were after, we told her 'A table for 2' and she radioed into the cafe. Excitement finally found me at this point, because in my head I was thinking 'This must mean the pace is really busy!' We were made to wait 10 minutes and take a look at the buy-able merch (T-shirts, badges, copies of the Resi games) before the girl got a radio message through to say we were allowed to go in. And in we went.
Shock slapped me to and fro in my face as I opened the door to find that the place was empty. What exactly was I made to wait 10 minutes for!? There were an abundance of tables, all of which looked as though nobody had sat at them all day. I could have fan boy justified this and chalked up the dismal and desolate lack of people down to the management wanting to keep the people count sparse and make it feel as empty as the Spencer mansion, but why bother with that shit. The place was dead because nobody wanted to come here. At this point I had forgotten why I bothered coming here and that perhaps I'd made a wrong choice.
The Resident evil cafe isn't a true conceptual cafe in the way many of Shibuya's other bars and restaurants are. It is just a regular bar with Resident evil memorabilia dotted around. There are replica guns stuck to the walls in frames. A typewriter in the wall. Some ink ribbons and random keys strewn across the bar. There is a really cool statue of a Tyrant in a glass tank. There are also some of the dresses which Milla Jovovich wore in those shitty films thrown on a the driest looking mannequins. This sounds like a lot and that it would make the place feel Resident evil-ey. But it doesn't. Because you still essentially feel like you are in any regular bar and that nothing about the place feels distinctively Resident evil enough. If you've been to Shibuya before you'll know that it is full of bars and restaurants which are themed and full of character. So to wander into a bar which has such a fun licence attached to it and for it to not utilise it to its full extent and potential - as a Resi fan I found this really disappointing.
The waitresses all wear a beret, and a military vest making them look like S.T.A.R.S members; until you look them down and see their denim hot pants and patent knee high boots - making them look like strippers. Not complaining. Although if this place was going to do titillation, it should have done so faithfully to the series. Put the waitresses in Jill Valentine's blue boob tube, mini skirt, white jumper tied around the waist and knee high leather boots combo. THAT shit is Resident evil approved skanky.
My friend and I sat at our table and we were brought the menu. I expected to see all manner of cool dishes relating to Resident evil in name. I was up for the Raccoon roast, the Albert Angus steak, bread sticks with Wesker wasabi dip. But no. The menu was boring. Just a selection of boring over priced dishes and over priced cocktails with the odd Resi related name hyphenated into it. The menus also looked shabby. Pictures of the food taken on camera phones and Times new roman font on plain white A4 paper slapped into a plastic binder. The food looked uninspiring and cost way more than I was willing to spend, so I opted for a cocktail and my friend did the same. My Japanese wasn't good enough at this point to ask a member of staff why both of our cocktails tasted of nothing but water. We'd just been swindled out of 700 yen.
Then when all my hope in this place was just about lost, a siren sounded and all of the waitresses ran into the middle of the restaurant and start dancing a routine to the Spice girls "Spice up your life". This was super awkward to watch, as there were 12 people in total in this bar (8 of whom were the waitresses). The awkwardness levels got racked up to 10 when the girls came up to our table and started gyrating in front of us and winking at us. We didn't know where to look and just nervously smiled as they thrusted their vaginas and popped their hips to...
♪ I SEE YA! HOLD TIGHT!! LA LA LA! LA LA LA LA LA LAAAA! ♪
The waitresses were absolutely lovely and were kind enough to give us replica guns to pose at the tyrant tank with for a photo op, which I could not turn down. They also all spoke perfect English - much better than that of the girl they left outside to greet the customers. I wondered why they they left the one girl with the worst English to greet people at the front of the cafe, but I now figure that she probably wasn't comfortable wearing denim hot pants and shaking her pussy to the Spice girls for tips.
The Resident evil bar and cafe had the potential to be something great. The venue is a nice size and the waitresses are all hot and really friendly. But the whole place feels like a cop out. You think you're going to get one thing, and get something completely different. I'd say it's worth going just to watch the waitresses dance to a song which has NO CORRELATION to the Resident evil series at all. But I would not go out of my way to visit this place again. If you're a Resi fan, you'll only get your heartbroken. That's if Resident evil 5 and 6 haven't already broken it for you. Shibuya is full of themed and conceptual restaurants which are full of life and live up to their themes tenfold, all of which make the Resident evil cafe look lazy and uninspired in comparison. The watered down experience and also the bad location of the establishment being tucked so far away from the hustle and bustle of Shibuya doesn't do much for the Resi brand.
If you're after a dining experience which features psychotic episodes, zombies, monsters and wonderfully creative menus; I'd recommend The lock up. It delivers in ways that the Resident evil cafe fails to and shows it how its done.
My friend and I had been in Shibuya for hours, having seen as many clothing stores, neon lights, over tanned girls in pink wigs and hood looking Japanese guys handing out flyer's that we could take. So we decided to take a moment to chill somewhere and figured what better place to do that than at THE RESIDENT EVIL CAFE!!
A word of advice for you if you plan on visiting this place: It's tucked away. It's easy to miss. You will more than likely walk around in circles trying to find. Even locals don't know where the damn place is. I asked a girl in H&M and a guy in Zara where the Resident evil cafe was (in really good Japanese might I add) and neither of them knew where it was. Upon finding out the Resident evil cafe was in 'the PARCO building', I asked a local where this PARCO place is, to which they toddled off and then shuffled back with a map of Shibuya - pointing to the hundreds of PARCO logos on the map. Fuck dis life.
Note: Take note of which PARCO building the Resident evil cafe is in. What I can recall is that it is in the one located in some random back alley, near to a Bathing ape store and right in front of a UNIQLO.
A long walk, a few wrong turns and an awkward conversation with the guy manning the elevator to the PARCO building later and we're on the 7th floor where the magic happens...or so we thought. The Resident evil cafe is the most boring looking restaurant on this floor. All of the other restaurants are open plan, allowing you to see inside. You can see the hustle and the bustle. You can hear the music blaring, customers laughing and engaging in conversation. Each restaurant is filled with life, except for the Resident evil cafe. Perhaps this was intentional. To show that all life in this place has either been shot by a member of S.T.A.R.S or infected and transformed into a shuffling mess by the T-Virus. But it diminished my spirits slightly and immediately put the thought in my head that 'This place could be shit'.
 |
| Outside the cafe, dead. Inside, just as dead. |
The cafe has a waiting / merch area which you are held in until you are given the okay to go into the restaurant, which you still cannot see at this point as it's behind a door - the windows of which are frosted. The girl at the desk of this waiting area asked what we were after, we told her 'A table for 2' and she radioed into the cafe. Excitement finally found me at this point, because in my head I was thinking 'This must mean the pace is really busy!' We were made to wait 10 minutes and take a look at the buy-able merch (T-shirts, badges, copies of the Resi games) before the girl got a radio message through to say we were allowed to go in. And in we went.
 |
| This girl is cute. But she wouldn't last 5 seconds in a zombie apocalypse. |
Shock slapped me to and fro in my face as I opened the door to find that the place was empty. What exactly was I made to wait 10 minutes for!? There were an abundance of tables, all of which looked as though nobody had sat at them all day. I could have fan boy justified this and chalked up the dismal and desolate lack of people down to the management wanting to keep the people count sparse and make it feel as empty as the Spencer mansion, but why bother with that shit. The place was dead because nobody wanted to come here. At this point I had forgotten why I bothered coming here and that perhaps I'd made a wrong choice.
The Resident evil cafe isn't a true conceptual cafe in the way many of Shibuya's other bars and restaurants are. It is just a regular bar with Resident evil memorabilia dotted around. There are replica guns stuck to the walls in frames. A typewriter in the wall. Some ink ribbons and random keys strewn across the bar. There is a really cool statue of a Tyrant in a glass tank. There are also some of the dresses which Milla Jovovich wore in those shitty films thrown on a the driest looking mannequins. This sounds like a lot and that it would make the place feel Resident evil-ey. But it doesn't. Because you still essentially feel like you are in any regular bar and that nothing about the place feels distinctively Resident evil enough. If you've been to Shibuya before you'll know that it is full of bars and restaurants which are themed and full of character. So to wander into a bar which has such a fun licence attached to it and for it to not utilise it to its full extent and potential - as a Resi fan I found this really disappointing.
The waitresses all wear a beret, and a military vest making them look like S.T.A.R.S members; until you look them down and see their denim hot pants and patent knee high boots - making them look like strippers. Not complaining. Although if this place was going to do titillation, it should have done so faithfully to the series. Put the waitresses in Jill Valentine's blue boob tube, mini skirt, white jumper tied around the waist and knee high leather boots combo. THAT shit is Resident evil approved skanky.
My friend and I sat at our table and we were brought the menu. I expected to see all manner of cool dishes relating to Resident evil in name. I was up for the Raccoon roast, the Albert Angus steak, bread sticks with Wesker wasabi dip. But no. The menu was boring. Just a selection of boring over priced dishes and over priced cocktails with the odd Resi related name hyphenated into it. The menus also looked shabby. Pictures of the food taken on camera phones and Times new roman font on plain white A4 paper slapped into a plastic binder. The food looked uninspiring and cost way more than I was willing to spend, so I opted for a cocktail and my friend did the same. My Japanese wasn't good enough at this point to ask a member of staff why both of our cocktails tasted of nothing but water. We'd just been swindled out of 700 yen.
 |
| ¥700 for cocktails which taste of water. BAMBOOZLED! |
Then when all my hope in this place was just about lost, a siren sounded and all of the waitresses ran into the middle of the restaurant and start dancing a routine to the Spice girls "Spice up your life". This was super awkward to watch, as there were 12 people in total in this bar (8 of whom were the waitresses). The awkwardness levels got racked up to 10 when the girls came up to our table and started gyrating in front of us and winking at us. We didn't know where to look and just nervously smiled as they thrusted their vaginas and popped their hips to...
♪ I SEE YA! HOLD TIGHT!! LA LA LA! LA LA LA LA LA LAAAA! ♪
 |
| This dance routine was better than anything I'd seen in the Resident evil films |
The waitresses were absolutely lovely and were kind enough to give us replica guns to pose at the tyrant tank with for a photo op, which I could not turn down. They also all spoke perfect English - much better than that of the girl they left outside to greet the customers. I wondered why they they left the one girl with the worst English to greet people at the front of the cafe, but I now figure that she probably wasn't comfortable wearing denim hot pants and shaking her pussy to the Spice girls for tips.
 |
| Leon's Resident evil 4 mugshot, in Leon's Resident evil 2 badge... *crickets chirp* |
The Resident evil bar and cafe had the potential to be something great. The venue is a nice size and the waitresses are all hot and really friendly. But the whole place feels like a cop out. You think you're going to get one thing, and get something completely different. I'd say it's worth going just to watch the waitresses dance to a song which has NO CORRELATION to the Resident evil series at all. But I would not go out of my way to visit this place again. If you're a Resi fan, you'll only get your heartbroken. That's if Resident evil 5 and 6 haven't already broken it for you. Shibuya is full of themed and conceptual restaurants which are full of life and live up to their themes tenfold, all of which make the Resident evil cafe look lazy and uninspired in comparison. The watered down experience and also the bad location of the establishment being tucked so far away from the hustle and bustle of Shibuya doesn't do much for the Resi brand.
If you're after a dining experience which features psychotic episodes, zombies, monsters and wonderfully creative menus; I'd recommend The lock up. It delivers in ways that the Resident evil cafe fails to and shows it how its done.