The café

Stations

Every recipe is made at one station: a coffee machine, an oven, a prep counter, a pastry bench. Tap a station to see what it can make and start a job. A station holds a limited number of jobs at once, and a finished job waits there until you collect it. Upgrading a station can make its work faster or let it hold more. Stations and storage lists every one with its upgrades.

Some recipes are components: dough, ganache or crème pâtissière are made once and then used in the recipes guests actually order. Each recipe page shows what goes into it and what it goes into.

Stock

Ingredients come from the supplier, or from your own garden. Storage pieces give you room for more.

Seating and guests

Guests only come in when there is a free seat, and the more seats your café has, the bigger the crowd it can hold — a bigger room draws people in a little faster, too. Decorations draw them in: the more the room has, the more often someone walks through the door, up to a point. Word gets round, too: while guests leave happy the street keeps sending them, and when several walk out, fewer come until service picks up. Charm decides who comes, and the more your café has earned, the better-paying the guests.

Different guests order different things, wait different lengths of time and spend differently. Tap the heart at the top of the screen to see how busy your street is and why.

Once your café has grown a little, some guests arrive together — a pair, a family, a table of friends — and they want to sit at one table. A party only comes in as large as your biggest table can seat, so a table for four is what lets four friends through the door. Each of them orders for themself, but they wait on one clock and they leave together, and while a party waits for a table big enough, that table is kept for them. The street takes a breath after a party, so you get the same number of guests over an hour, in bunches rather than in a line.

A bigger room

The café starts at 6 × 5. The first expansion costs 2,500 coins and needs level 7; every expansion also makes room for more staff.