Cafe World Tips and Strategies (Part 1)

Ok, normally I am not the guy that play Facebook games but I wanted to give this game a try to see what the buzz was all about. I noticed my wife playing this religiously every evening and an officemate seemed addicted to it a few weeks back. Must be something here.

I will not go much into what this game is about as I expect most readers of my blog to be already familiar with it. For those that isn’t, Cafe World is essentially a SIMS-like kind of game where you are the chef and you have your own cafe to run. You cook, server, people food, earn money, expand your business, and learn more dishes. The game is still in BETA and is published by Zynga which has been reputable in producing good social games.

What some of you may not know yet is how to play this game effectively. As it is a real-time based game, you have to be careful not to be too addicted that you live your life in it. Here are some tips I would like to share from my own research on how you can play this game with maximum efficiency of your time and getting ahead quickly by working the game mechanics to your advantage.

What dish should I make?

Whenever you prepare a dish and succesffully cook it, you gain exp. You also gain exp when you clean the stove afterwards. Different dishes gives you different exp so the trick is to find the dish that gives the most exp for the least amount of time. The most efficient dish in my experience is the “Bacon Chesseburger”. What makes this dish efficient (time to prepare) is also what makes it a problem. Since the time to prepare is only 5 minutes, it means you have to always attend to it when its done. That can be tedious and time consuming. So the long and short of it is if you plan to sit in front of Cafe World for awhile, make alot of burgers, if not, then plan your dish to your playtime. There are so many dishes to choose from, and each with their own time to prepare, just choose a dish that takes the time you know when you can next be on. Say if you plan to play again 12 hours later,  choose a 12 hour dish. If you can’t be on for a day, choose a 1 day dish. You get the idea.

Here is a table for the dishes and their profit ratios courtesy of tomuse

Menu Item	Level	Time	Cost	Sells For	Serves	Profit	P/S
Bacon Cheeseburger	1	5	15	52	13	22	1.69
Super Chunk Fruit Salad	1	15	35	100	100	50	0.5
French Onion Soup	1	240	175	615	205	425	2.07
Triple Berry Cheesecake	1	720	400	1650	550	1235	2.25
Spitfire Roasted Chicken	1	1440	600	3200	800	2585	3.23
Home-style Pot Roast	3	2880	1800	5750	1150	3935	3.42
Tikka Masala Kabobs	5	60	215	360	90	130	1.44
Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail	7	30	65	148	65	68	1.05
Spagetti and Meatballs	11	480	450	1375	275	910	3.31
Tony’s Classic Pizza	15	300	400	1300	260	885	3.40
Voodoo Chicken Salad	19	720	700	2675	535	1960	3.66
Chicken Gyro and Fries	23	10	45	88	22	28	1.27
King Crab Bisque	27	1440	1300	6685	955	5370	5.62
Kung Pao Stir Fry	31	240	600	1600	320	985	3.08
Overstuffed Peppers	35	720	1300	4300	860	2985	3.47
Fiery Fish Tacos	39	120	725	1230	205	490	2.39
Powdered French Toast	43	20	140	222	37	67	1.81
Impossible Quiche	47	?	5000	?	?	?	?
Chips & Guacamole	?	3	10	36	12	11	0.92
Caramel Apples	?	120	90	300	75	195	2.60
Pumpkin Pie	?	720	200	1060	265	845	3.19

Profit = total profit minus all expenses: Sells For – Cost – cleaning costs (15 coins)
P/S = profits per serving
Time = total cooking time in minutes
? = unknown;

Beware of Spoiled Food

Not only do you lose the cost of the ingredients, you also lose all the time spent in preparing the dish. You can also use this guide to determine which food you can best prepare so it will be ready and unspoiled when you get back to the game. Note that only food left on the stove will spoil. Any food you have placed on the counters will be fine.

Cafe World Spoiled Time
Dish Name	Cook Time	Spoiling Time After Cooking	Total Time
Beacon Cheeseburger	00:05:00	00:06:00	00:11:00
Super Chunk Fruit Salad	00:15:00	00:18:00	00:33:00
French Onion Soup	04:00:00	04:48:00	08:48:00
Triple Berry Cheesecake	12:00:00	14:24:00	26:24:00
Spitfire Roasted Chicken	24:00:00	28:48:00	52:48:00
HomeStyle Pot Roast	48:00:00	57:36:00	105:36:00
Tikka Masala Kabobs	01:00:00	01:12:00	02:12:00
Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail	00:30:00	00:36:00	01:06:00
Spagetti and Meatballs	08:00:00	09:36:00	17:36:00
Tony’s Classic Pizza	05:00:00	06:00:00	11:00:00
Voodoo Chicken Salad	12:00:00	14:24:00	26:24:00
Chicken Gyro and Fries	00:10:00	00:12:00	00:22:00
King Crab Bisque	24:00:00	28:48:00	52:48:00
Kung Pao Stir Fry	04:00:00	04:48:00	08:48:00
Overstuffed Peppers	12:00:00	14:24:00	26:24:00
Fiery Fish Tacos	02:00:00	02:24:00	04:24:00
Powdered French Toast	00:20:00	00:24:00	00:44:00
Impossible Quiche	48:00:00	57:36:00	105:36:00
Chips and Guacamole	00:03:00	00:03:36	00:06:36
Caramel Apples	02:00:00	02:24:00	04:24:00
Pumpkin Pie	12:00:00	12:00:00	14:24:00
Vampire Staked Steak (discontinued)	24:00:00	28:48:00	52:48:00

(table courtesy of lightchan)

Cafe Layout

The layout is very important. You will want to have an efficient layout that will let you serve your customers quickly and clean up fast. There is a trick to this and here’s the good news: YOUR WAITERS DO NOT NEED TO WALK TO THE CUSTOMERS TABLE TO SERVE FOOD AND TO CLEAN UP. They will walk over if you let them but if you trap them behind stoves and counters, food will just magically appear on the customer’s table and will magically cleanup after they leave. The waiters however do need to be placed with access to the counters. See this image for the best example.

Buzz Rating and Closing the Cafe

On the upper right corner, you will see a buzz rating. This is important as its a measure of how popular your restaurant is. The max is 105 as of now and you need to keep this up. More customers means more money. You increase your buzz whenever a customer has been satisfactorily served. It lowers when customers don’t get served and leaves because they cannot wait anymore. Make sure you have enough tables, chairs, and food to serve them. When you run out of food, CLOSE THE CAFE. When you are cannot play anymore and is loggin out, CLOSE THE CAFE. By closing the cafe, you can protect your buzz rating as you will not have dissatisfied customers while you are away. To close the cafe, simply remove the doors. Put them back when you want to re-open for business. When closed, make sure the stoves are cooking something in preparation.

Check out the Part 2 post for more Cafe World Tips and Strategies.