Rude Café

The Rude Café is an establishment located in Academy City's School District 7, featured in the short story Toaru Majutsu no Virtual-On: Misaka Mikoto's Dangerous Tea Party.

Appearance
The café's interior has chairs and tables colored with the red, blue, yellow and green of a 12-color paint set, appearing somewhat reminiscent of an indoor amusement park's nursery or a foreign burger shop. The seats are made of cheap synthetic leather and the walls and floor are covered in thick plastic.

Principles
Rather than being focused on food, Rude Café allows its customers to safely engage in slapstick and comedic violence, allowing them to blow off steam and get some exercise while working off their stress. Customers are served a variety of imitation and comedy items, from sugar sculptures in the shape of bottles to cream pies, which they can hit and throw at one another, or use to freely play out various comedy-related scenarios.

The café has an extensive selection of imitation items, made out of sugar, urethane foam, aluminium foil and other similar materials, all carefully made to appear like the real thing and be perfectly safe to hit another with. Plants and minerals are used for all of the coloring, with the use of natural ingredients being one of the cafe's selling points. Items on the menu can be ordered separately or in a pre-made set (as if customers order items one at a time, they are likely to run out before their fight is over).

The Rude Café does serve normal food but only finger food as having real plates and utensils might lead to confusion and accidents. This includes sushi, vegetable chips, tortillas, cheese and sliced fish on crackers, on paper plates and in clear plastic packets, and paper cups of tea.

Fitting the name and nature of the café, customers can behave in a manner which would be considered rude elsewhere, such as impolitely pointing or pounding on tables for food, as well as the behaviour connected to the various comedy scenarios they are acting out. There are also a fair number of customers who ignore the partitions and move into other people's space with their antics. Similarly, staff aren't obliged to meet the bare minimum of politeness and do so at the start so as to prepare customers for what is to come. If a customer takes issue with the flavor or appearance of the food or gets someone else's order, they are allowed to call over an employee and hit them as they would a fellow customer (this option might be why the prices are high). A hand scanner at the front counter is used as an agreement and liability waver for customers wishing to take part in the activities at the café. Customers can have aprons to wear if they wish to do so.

Customers can be seated at tables or in private rooms. Instead of salt and sugar, tables have several bottles made of soft spongy material and containing thick red liquid for scenarios involving fake blood. There are wet towels, however they have different purpose given the nature of the café. There are no hand bells as including real items increases the chances of an accident and they wouldn't fit the atmosphere of the Rude Café. Instead, a customer can call staff by pounding on their table, the corners of which are sandwiched between a special plastic material so as to produce a silly noise when hit, like the slapping of a children's plastic sandals with each step taken. The cheap synthetic leather on the seats and thick plastic covering the walls and floor are meant to catch stains that would otherwise hit them when thrown objects miss their mark.

There is a row of one person seats along the counter which acts as a safe zone, so customers who have been hit by too many items can take a short break, as well as a gathering point for connoisseurs who enjoy watching rather than participating (the manager being one of them). There is also a staff room which doubles as a medical room.

The café is located on the 6th floor of a multi-tenant building in School District 7, and a number of the other tenants in the building provide services which fit in with the activities of the café and its customers. These include a gym, a laundry service and several other services for killing time. The building doesn't have an elevator, with a narrow stairway leading up to the 6th floor.

Background
The old man who manages Rude Café used to manage a café with his twin brother, however their partnership ended following an argument over an arcade fighting game.

Toaru Majutsu no Virtual-On: Misaka Mikoto's Dangerous Tea Party
Having found out about the place from Saten Ruiko, Misaka Mikoto brought Shokuhou Misaki to the Rude Café prior to the Vooster's Cup, in an attempt to discuss her concerns about the tournament while using the café's craziness to nullify the dangerous atmosphere of their talk, which wasn't successful.

Trivia

 * A couple of similar places found by Saten were also mentioned in the short story; an overbearing husband karaoke where customers can flip over a tea table over any little thing and a combat ration restaurant where they can eat light meal while having an airsoft battle.