Everyone’s looking for a way to survive the recession and for a restaurant in Tokyo that way is monkeys. The Kayabuki Tavern relies on monkeys to serve as waiters, and it’s a gimmick that might just keep their restaurant open.
 

CNN reports that the year 2008 will likely be a record breaker for restaurant bankruptcies in Tokyo. But, for Kayabuki, monkeys keep people coming. The primates do it all: serve food, bring the check and schmooze with patrons. See them at work in the Reuters video above.
 

Perhaps it’s just me, but I find something a little…off… about being served my meal by a pair of monkeys. One restaurant-goer came all the way from Michigan to check out the oddity, something they couldn’t see back in the good old U. S. of A.
 

“I don’t think they’d allow it,” the man said. “I see absolutely nothing wrong with it, but the animal rights probably wouldn’t allow it.”
 

And what about that little issue of hygiene? Well the Tokyo health department inspectors say as long as the monkeys wear clothes, it’s a-okay. America may be uptight, but those “regulations” just wouldn’t fly here -- Sad.