Fan Service with a Smile



""Remember, there's only a one letter difference between tits and tips.""

- Misfile

Female serving staff wearing revealing outfits. Can be anything from a maid costume to a short skirt and low-cut top that reveals just enough cleavage to keep the male clientele interested.

Less commonly, the serving staff may be male, and dressed to expose or accentuate his physique. He may be shirtless (perhaps with a bowtie), or wearing a Naked Apron, or some other Rule of Sexy.

Can overlap with Bikini Bar. See also Sexy Stewardess. Cosplay Cafes usually feature this.

This item is available in the Trope Co catalog.

No Real Life Examples Please

Anime and Manga

 * Lampshaded in the Excel Saga anime, where Excel and Hyatt spend one mission working at a nightclub, and Hyatt notices that their outfits seem designed to emphasize their busts.
 * In the manga, Excel, Hyatt and Elgala get jobs at a beachside bikini bar. Excel (of course) misunderstands and turns up in a somewhat less revealing swimsuit from middle school swimming lessons... which turns out to be surprisingly popular. Later, "Teriha" gets a job at a Maid Cafe to repay Shioji for taking her in.
 * Shion's job in Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni is working at a restaurant with some very... . There's an official manga omake with just about the whole cast in the same thing. Yes, even Oishi. It's... not for the faint of heart.
 * Despite being as covering as you can really get short of a burkha, the waitress outfit during the Festival Episode in Suzumiya Haruhi really brings out the assets of Mikuru and Tsuruya, at least judging by Kyon's and his friend's reaction and the notice "No Photographing" on the front door of the restaurant.
 * Kallen, the top-heavy ace pilot from Code Geass, begins the second season undercover at a casino wearing a Playboy Bunny costume. Naturally, this got the fanartists' pens flying, and now you can find pictures of almost the entire female cast (and several of the men) in the same outfit.
 * For the few days Ukyou was too sick to tend to her restaurant in Ranma One Half, Ranma, Konatsu, and Akane volunteered to take over for her so she wouldn't go broke. It didn't take long for Ranma to realize that plenty of male patrons came over to ogle the cute "waitress" Konatsu, and so he quickly turned female, donned a microscopic miniskirt and heels, and proceeded to attract even more customers. Later on, Akane made up Konatsu as some sort of prince, attracting female customers just as effectively.
 * In Lucky Star, Hiyori outfits Minami and Yutaka in cosplay outfits for the class cafe that pander for her tastes.
 * He Is My Master: The whole point of the series is to have a rich teenage pervert require his teenage maids to dress in quasi-fetish outfits.
 * In one episode of Zero no Tsukaima, Louise and Saito are asked by the resident monarch (who happens to be ) to go investigate whether or not the aristocrats are oppressing the plebeians. Louise loses all of their expense money trying to get more money through gambling. The Camp Gay manager of a nearby inn lends them a room on one condition: Louise has to dress up in a revealing Meido outfit like the rest of the waitresses. While this is most definitely Fan Service, it's most certainly not with a smile, since the customers either cop a feel on the waitresses, or insult Louise for having a flat chest.
 * Volume 19 of Shounen Shikou features a Shotacon version of this. An otouto dresses up as a meido for his School Festival and . (How did you know already?)
 * The various bars and restaurants in the Magical World in Mahou Sensei Negima. However, these girls are slaves. Some of them, anyway.
 * In Bakugan New Vestroia, the customers' reaction when Mira decides to pitch in at Runo's restaurant evokes this trope, although it's just Mira in her normal outfit plus an apron.
 * Male example: England's "Sexy Waiter" outfit, which basically consists of the lower half of a Hadaka Apron, a bowtie, and cuffs.
 * Kamen no Maid Guy took this concept and ran with it. In one episode, the main characters are competing against a rival cake shop that is constantly packed to the gills with male customers. The shop's food is terrible to say the least, but no one is going there for the food. Every waitress that works there is required to have a D cup or larger, wear Meido outfits that show off as much cleavage as possible, and even adopt mannerisms that draw attention to their breasts. Being "gifted", Naeka gets a job there to go undercover.

Comics

 * The splash page of one issue of Scion has a sexy bartender leaning over the bar, cleavage in full view, smiling directly at the reader and asking, "See anything you like?"

Film

 * Both the staff of McDonald's, and the airline service in The Fifth Element.
 * Tony Stark's private airline flight attendants in the Iron Man movie. Goes beyond mere Fanservice to... other implications in a deleted scene where it's revealed that he snuggles up with one... and two more take Rhodey offscreen. Justified, of course; the man is rich and probably pays them for it (at least for the pole-dancing, he might be able to get the rest for free with his charm).
 * Idiocracy. In the future, every establishment will utilize this, every one of them. Even the news. Of course, most establishments are now brothels, so this is the least of society's vices.
 * Coyote Ugly
 * When Nancy is shown working at the diner at the beginning of the A Nightmare On Elm Street remake, she has a nice Zettai Ryouiki thing going on. Plus Male Gaze (in-universe, since it's Quentin's POV) is in effect.
 * Missing in Action. Chuck Norris hooks up with an old army buddy in Thailand, leading to plenty of gratuituous fanservice involving totally naked bar girls. One notable scene has Chuck talking to a bartender; as he walks offscreen a beautiful naked Thai girl is placed on the bar for no apparent reason (security for a bar tab?).

Literature

 * In the web-based gay furry story series Welcome to Frappuccinos, the main character Venti is a Hunky male hyena serving drinks in a coffee house. His uniform on the job consists of nothing but a Naked Apron.

Live Action TV

 * Sarah's Wienerlicious uniform in Chuck is a dirndl with a teensy little skirt.
 * In the TV show Charlies Angels, the Angels seemed to have to get these kinds of jobs to help solve the case. Funny how often that happened.
 * Olive Snook's Pie Hole uniforms in Pushing Daisies are always low-cut with short skirts.
 * Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Dabo girls of Quark's Bar are mostly croupiers, but also serve drinks, and all wear Stripperiffic outfits to better loosen the punters' wallets.
 * The Middleman's protagonist briefly works at The Booty Chest, a "pirate-themed sports bar with scantily-clad waitresses".
 * Sookie and the other waitresses at Sam's in True Blood have a uniform of very tight T-shirts and shorts.
 * On The Glades one murder victim was a regular of a beach side bar where most of the male patrons are there to see Maggie the waitress. She wears a skimpy bikini and likes to sunbathe topless on the beach before work. It's an open secret that half the men in the bar are in love with her and she is the one thing keeping the bar profitable.
 * Another episode had a 'booze cruise' where the waitresses wore skimpy pirate wench costumes.
 * Max of Two Broke Girls has her uniform open a lot lower than the other waitress. She's played by the rather chesty Kat Dennings, and is probably doing it deliberately, to get tips.
 * Giada De Laurentiis provides plenty of this on her cooking shows on Food Network and Cooking Channel. We're not complaining.
 * Nigella Lawson has also earned a healthy reputation for this.
 * Sandra Lee seems to be attempting this trope, but instead comes across as tasteless Fetish Retardant, though YMMV of course.
 * Ruby's midriff-baring white top and tight red short-shorts when serving at Granny's in Once Upon a Time.

Video Games
"C.C.: So how do you feel riding Guren, Kallen?
 * In one of the cases in the third Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney game, the murder takes place at a restaurant, and the only witness is a Dirty Old Man who, as it turns out, only goes there to ogle the waitresses in their skimpy uniforms.
 * And in middle of the case, Maya gets hired in the same restaurant and has to use the uniforms. Phoenix uses that to get information from the witness, and when it doesn't work she channels Mia...
 * The entire premise of the Pia Carrot Dating Sim Series Franchise.
 * The H Game series Hana Bunny-san Kirai? (Do You Like Horny Bunnys?) is centered around the fictional Platinum restaurants, where the female servers all wear... What else? Playboy Bunny costumes.
 * All of the fighters in the Variable Geo series work at one of these places, and fight in their restaurant's uniform.
 * This is the concept behind the restaurant sim Hot Dog King, where you operate a franchise of fast food stands staffed mostly by cute girls. You even get to choose what sort of outfits they wear on the job, from tight-fitting but relatively modest outfits to various revealing swimsuits.
 * In Tokimeki Memorial 2, if  has revealed her Backstory to the protagonist and is in love with him, her special event at the School Festival will show her having fun working as the waitress of the Tea Shop, wearing a maid outfit.
 * In one scenario of Super Robot Wars Z2 Saisei Hen, Kallen Kozuki was serving as a waitress at Coconna's shop. It seems that only the bunny suit was available for Kallen. To make things worse, Dimension Beasts appeared near their shop and their commander didn't give Kallen permission﻿ to change back to her normal outfit. Kallen's embarrassed over the bunny suit thing, so Esther (complete with triangle chiming) tries to hypnotize her so that she will fight better with it on.

Kallen: "How"...?

Ester: Get back Kallen. DM extermination is my specialty.

Kallen: Ester...are you mad about something?

Ester: I'm not frustrated...I'm not frustrated!

Kallen: You brought your triangle into the cockpit...

Ester: You're piloting the Guren wearing a bunny suit, aren't you?! So I'm bringing my work tool into mine too!


 * ding ding ding*

C.C.: It looks like she really is that frustrated that she couldn't become a bunny (girl).

Kallen: Sure looks like it...

Kiderra: Woman's jealousy sure is scary...

Ester: I said I'm not frustrated! Even though I'm not that pretty, or elegant, or friendly, or good as serving...

C.C.: (to all the above points) To a destructive degree.

Ester: I'll live my life as a (DM) buster. So bring it on, DM's.

C.C.: Looks like everything got solved by itself.

Chirico: Here they come."

Visual Novels

 * Shuffle has a tea shop called "Flora", famous for the cute waitress outfits. Kareha works there part-time. At the end of her route,  starts working there as well. The anime has   lose her wallet, and being unable to pay, she helps out there for the day.

Web Original

 * In Chapter 2 of the Whateley Universe story "Ayla and the Birthday Brawl," Phase is in charge of running the monthly Golden Kids meeting (a bunch of the rich kids have a soiree every month to touch base and network), and has asked several of his female friends, most of whom are stunningly attractive, to waitress. In French maid outfits. They agree, and the Golden Kids spend most of the meeting drooling over the wait staff. Unfortunately for Phase, part of the reason he asked his friends to waitress was so that he could ask them about any overheard gossip, but since all the Golden Kids wanted to talk about whenever any of the waitresses was around was the waitresses themselves, that part of his plan backfired.

Web Comics

 * Twice Blessed has very buxom barmaid for an accidental innuendo gag early on.
 * The idea behind Okashina Okashi's Beauty Man Garden, introduced here, staffed by Bishonen wearing nothing more than a Modesty Towel with the restaurant's logo. Unless they're washing dishes, in which case it's a Hadaka Apron.
 * In one arc of Misfile, Ash takes a summer job with another waitress who leaves the collar buttons of her shirt open. She tries to get Ash to follow suit, but instead she settles for only one button.

Western Animation

 * Gender Flipped: In Season 2, the writers of Avatar: The Last Airbender seem to love putting the Estrogen Brigade Bait in an apron serving tea, and he acquires one Girl of the Week this way. Even after he's still serving tea.