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My Cafe: Recipes and Stories Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies for Running a Successful Restaurant

If you’re a coffee lover, owning your very own café sounds like a lovely business venture. After all, you’re going to be selling something you’re already interested in, and in this fast-paced, slightly insomniac world, you’re sure you won’t run out of customers.

Cafés are a dime a dozen anyway and even with the presence of big-name brands like Starbucks or Seattle’s Best, a lot of people still prefer quaint little establishments with a more intimate, cozy, and laid-back atmosphere. Your dream coffee shop doesn’t have to be huge, it just needs to look nice, serve good coffee, and keep earning… right?

my cafe recipes and stories cover
Wake up and smell the coffee!

But if you’ve ever watched even just one episode of the popular TV show Kitchen Nightmares, you’d know that not everyone has the ability or resources to run a successful café or restaurant. Knowing how to make tasty coffee in the morning (or anytime of the day for that matter) is miles apart from having a successful business venture.

There are lots of things to consider when you jump into the café business, not the least of which include the menu, your staff, the café’s appearance, inventory, and earnings. You might be great at whipping up an amazing brew, but it could all go south quickly if you don’t know how to properly manage a business.

So why not run a café in the digital world instead? With a game like My Cafe, everything you need to run a successful café business will be at your fingertips, and you’d still have time to gossip with the customers!

my cafe recipes and stories marzipan

Published by Melsoft Games, My Cafe: Recipes and Stories is a café simulator with a twist: you’re not just there to provide delicious coffee and desserts to your patrons, but you’re also there to unravel a series of different stories or episodes involving the colorful cast of characters frequenting your establishment.

Like any restaurant simulator, you begin by building the interior of your café from scratch, wherein you gradually add more equipment like coffee machines, place tables and chairs, redecorate the walls and flooring, and many more. You also get to unlock items from an expansive menu of drinks and desserts, fulfill special orders, and set prices that will turn in a good profit.

my cafe recipes and stories vanilla ice cream freezer
You can’t go wrong with vanilla ice cream.

Additionally, you get to interact with and meet new customers, each of whom have their own quirky character traits, backstories, and unlockable episodes that make your cafe an intimate community of locals who end up making friends with you and the other patrons.

Of course, My Cafe isn’t going to be complete as a restaurant simulator if you don’t have challenging but enjoyable community-related tasks, tons of event bonuses, and a handful of avenues from which you can earn extra rewards.

The gameplay mechanics for My Cafe seem quite straightforward at the onset: with the help of Ann, your assistant and barista, you’ll be guided through different tasks aimed toward getting all the necessary equipment, decor, recipes, and menu items for your restaurant.

my cafe recipes and stories new customer
That pose isn’t for show. Trust us.

By completing these tasks, which are found in the left-hand side of the screen, you earn experience points that will help you level up. Upon leveling up, you get to unlock new equipment, decor, events, menu items, customers, etc.

As more customers come in, the more items you need to put in your café. From time to time, talking to customers will be considered a task you must fulfill as they’ll tell you what kind of drinks or desserts they’d like to see on the menu. With that, you can unlock and purchase more equipment to make sure you have the appropriate tools to fulfill their orders and keep them happy.

my cafe recipes and stories margaret
Whoa, lady. Calm down!

As for the menu, you will gradually unlock different recipes depending on your level, what customers want, and whether or not you have the right machines or facilities to make those orders. Once you’ve unlocked menu items, you can also set their prices and adjust them the more you progress and expand your café.

my cafe recipes and stories menu
All the espressos under the sun.

Speaking of orders, one thing that separates My Cafe from other restaurant simulators is that customers don’t display their orders as icons with patience bars or timers above their heads. Instead, you have to individually speak to each customer to know which drinks or desserts they want.

my cafe recipes and stories detective
The world’s greatest detective or the world’s greatest detective’s assistant? You decide!

The good news is that you can accomplish these orders at your leisure, though customers might still leave the premises after some time, but they’ll come back later. Usually, though, they hang out at your cafe for hours on end and just keep on ordering. Fortunately, you have Ann to help you and take some of the customers’ orders if you find your hands full.

Naturally, you’re going to have to shift your focus toward some other aspects of your business in the long run. Thus, the game will let you hire at least one server to help you and Ann.

my cafe recipes and stories candidates
Pick the best.

From here, your café is just going to become bigger and bigger—literally and figuratively. But as with any restaurant business, you need to consistently be on top of things. From the menu to the prices, profits, inventory, customer demand, and even the events and stories you need to unravel, you’re definitely going to feel a little bit overwhelmed in time.

But don’t worry as our comprehensive guide for My Cafe will cover all that and more! With more than a handful of tips and tricks, we’ll show you how to be on top of running your dream café, make the right financial decisions, earn bonus rewards on top of your regular takings, and keep your quirky but lovable customers happy.

Let’s get right into it!

Keep Checking the Menu

my cafe recipes and stories prices
Proper coffee shop prices.

One of the things that you will have early access to is the menu. You can check it out by clicking the icon with three lines on the upper right-hand corner of the screen. There will be several options available so click the Menu option if you want to open it.

As expected, you’ll only have a few items available on your menu when your café is still small. However, as you level up and unlock more customers, equipment, and recipes, you’re going to have more complicated and longer combinations in the long run.

Fortunately, since there isn’t an active timer over every customer as they order, you can keep checking out the menu in case you’ve forgotten how to make a specific order. Compared to other restaurant simulators, My Cafe is actually a bit more forgiving as you don’t have to throw items away if you make a mistake when putting together drinks and desserts.

One other important reason we recommend frequently checking your menu is that as your café grows, you’re going to have to raise prices at a reasonable rate. The thing is, you can discover that prices of some items can be raised to a certain extent only when you access the menu and go through each category.

If you observe the image at the beginning of this section, you’ll notice that the prices of some menu items have a light green color while others have a darker shade. If you see any item with a slightly lighter green color, this means you can raise its price one level before it turns yellow. Items with yellow range prices tend to be too expensive for most customers and a majority will not pay for them. Items with prices on the red range will be completely shunned by customers as nobody will be willing to pay that much.

That said, keep checking your menu to make sure that every item is at its maximum favorable price to customers. Keep in mind that price adjustments can only be applied to regular orders and not special orders (more on this later).

Be Smart About the Floor Layout

my cafe recipes and stories cafe interior design
A cozy atmosphere.

Like any café design game, you get to start with a clean slate as you’ll be given an empty floor space to work with while you lay out the interior of your cafe. It goes without saying that you can decorate and redecorate it as you please, provided you have enough resources to buy decor items. From having one tea machine on a stand to having multiple equipment and seats for your customers, how can you be smart about your floor plan from the get-go?

Here are a few recommendations:

  • Place any equipment at the sides of your café. This seems like a no-brainer as you don’t want your equipment, display cases, freezers, etc. obstructing the middle of your café (unless you arrange them neatly).

    By placing all equipment at the sides of your café, not only can you freely play around with your tables and chairs later, but it also promotes efficiency and functionality since you won’t mistakenly click on other prompts, like customers’ orders or customers wanting to talk. This way, you also get to organize your equipment by type, which is our next tip.
  • Organize equipment by type. Basically, this means lining up beverage machines together, putting dessert display cases near each other, and placing fridges and freezers all in one corner. We’d like to point out that each equipment (with the exception of fridges and freezers) needs a stand to be mounted on so we don’t recommend putting stands in front of each other as your servers will not be able to access the equipment or display case at the back.

    Additionally, if you organize equipment by their type or function, you won’t get confused about which equipment to click when you’re putting together an order.
  • Set the server’s table and phone at the center of your equipment. Eventually, you’ll get to hire staff who can help you and your assistant Ann wait tables. Ann is your barista and the staff you’ll be hiring are servers. Since Ann will be focused on primarily making the beverages, you’re going to need a server’s table where Ann can place finished drinks for servers to deliver to tables.

    Set the server’s table in the middle of your equipment so both Ann and your servers can have easy access to this spot. Additionally, once you unlock the phone, place this next to your server’s table for convenient access as well.
  • Use two-table and four-table arrangements. When you first get tables and chairs for your customers, you’ll only be able to afford one-seater bar counters since they’re the cheapest option. The downside is, they’re not very space-friendly.

    Once you’re able to raise your profits and afford more expensive decor, have a mix and match of two-table and four-table seating arrangements for your customers. While this might set you back a bit in terms of gold resources, you can easily recoup your expenditure if you’re diligent in completing orders. With two-table and four-table seating arrangements, you get to save on space and have some more room to add flourish to your café.

Pick a Theme and Stick to It 

my cafe recipes and stories cafe interior
No Italian-style cafe? Aww.

Further to being smart about your café’s interiors, you’ll eventually get to unlock at least six different themes with which you can decorate your establishment. With so many options, you might get tempted to mix and match decor items from different themes. After all, you might just be able to put them seamlessly together to make a café that has a totally unique personality.

The thing is, using themed decor isn’t purely for aesthetics. While it can sound fun to mix and match, sticking to one theme will actually do much better for your profits. By picking one definitive theme and sticking with it, you’ll be able to increase the tips you get from customers. This option will be introduced eventually by an interaction with Fernando, where he will ask you to pick a theme you’d like to go with.

For this playthrough, we picked the French Style theme. This means changing most, if not all, the default decor items in the café to that of French Style. If you speak to Fernando again after picking a theme and gradually increasing the number of theme-appropriate decor, he will explain how much this has increased tips, as shown in the image below:

my cafe recipes and stories fernando

As you can see, the theme we’ve picked yields the most tips. You can still increase this percentage by placing more theme-appropriate decor items. So, pick a theme wisely and stick with it!

Keep Expanding the Café

my cafe recipes and stories cafe expansion
More space, more customers.

Once you’ve acquired equipment, decor, and more customers, your café’s eventually going to feel cramped. When this happens, don’t hesitate to spend for an expansion.

Expanding your café is going to cost a pretty penny indeed for a small strip of additional space. What’s more, succeeding expansions can double or triple in price and the space added won’t feel that big. However, we still recommend expanding your café when the opportunity is available and you have the gold resources to cover the cost.

Why? Because it can reward you with a Gold spice (not to be confused with gold as currency), which is a very valuable, expensive, and extremely rare spice that you’ll need when completing the 5th and final step of all special orders. If you really think about it, expansion becomes a win-win albeit an expensive one: you get to increase the space in your café while earning a rare spice without having to spend a huge amount of diamonds.

Work Those Machines

my cafe recipes and stories cappuccino machine
This is the dawn of a new era for your cafe!

Although My Cafe doesn’t have a strict timer when it comes to fulfilling orders, it can still feel a bit tedious to wait for the beverage machines to finish or for the dessert display cases to refill. Particularly for the beverage machines, the newer the equipment, the more complex the beverage it creates, so the slower it finishes.

For instance, the Tea Machine and Espresso Machine are just about the same speed when it comes to making drinks. However, the Latte Machine and the Cappuccino Machine take much, much longer and you could have already made two or three cups of tea or espresso before they’re done with one.

If you’re not too keen about the long waiting times, it’s a good idea to keep the beverage machines constantly working. Even if you don’t have an order for a latte or cappuccino, get their respective machines working so you’d have them made in advance. You don’t get penalties for leaving beverages on their machines untouched anyway so make sure that no machine is empty. Similarly, when you see that the dessert display cases are empty, refill them immediately.

You can also be smart about delivering multiple orders of the same type, especially if they require items that take a while to make. Basically, start with orders that take the longest time to create, like latte-based or cappuccino-based drinks.

While waiting for those to finish, you can go ahead and put together a couple of tea-based, espresso-based, or americano-based drinks. It might be tempting to speed things up with diamonds but don’t do it! Our next section explains why.

Patience Goes a Long Way in Saving Diamonds

my cafe recipes and stories diamond
No, don’t press it. No!

As the saying goes, patience is a virtue. In My Cafe you’ll definitely be rewarded for being patient, although not exactly in the way you might expect.

Like many mobile games these days, My Cafe does a good job of trying to get some extra moolah by capitalizing on a player’s impatience. Among other things, it offers you the chance to speed up machines or supplement a lack of gold by paying for it with diamonds.

As you may have guessed, gold is the basic currency while diamonds are the premium currency. Both have their respective uses, but it’s a little bit easier to earn a higher amount of gold than diamonds. And while it can be tempting to spend just a tiny amount of diamonds to get orders faster or to pay for what you might lack with gold for that sweet decor item, resist every urge to do so.

That’s because there are more important things you can spend diamonds on, primarily spices. Our next section discusses spices in detail, but for now, clutch those diamonds as you would your pearls because you’re definitely going to need a lot of them.

Spice Up Your Orders

my cafe recipes and stories special orders
Remember the Gold spice we mentioned?

You’ll notice quite quickly that regular orders, since their prices are based on your menu, won’t earn you as much. During the early part of the game, you’ll be focusing on delivering regular orders to your customers. But down the line, they’ll start asking for special orders, which are custom-made drinks and desserts made more delectable by spices.

Spices are special ingredients you can get by:

  • Paying for them with diamonds in the Spice Booth
  • As rewards for fulfilling phone and Township orders
  • Opening gifts

There are different kinds of spices and you’ll encounter specific types depending on which step you’re trying to accomplish in a customer’s special order. Special orders consist of five steps and completing each step will typically get you a hefty gold reward, as well as a gift or ticket upon accomplishing Step 4 or Step 5. Every customer will have a different special order for each step and you’ll see which step they’re in as this will be indicated by an icon with a number on their head.

my cafe recipes and stories customers

You may access special orders when you click the “Would you like something special?” option when taking their order. This also means that only you can fulfill special orders as your staff will not be able to access this option and can only continue delivering regular orders to customers.

my cafe recipes and stories bill

Because of the huge gold rewards and gifts special orders bring, we recommend making every effort to complete the five steps to earn these rewards. However, there are two hurdles you’ll consistently face: you either have not enough spices or too many of them. That said, managing your spices and spice box slots are vital skills you need to have as a café owner.

Otherwise, you’ll find yourself losing diamonds real quick if only to get that one rare spice (we’re looking at you, Gold!) to finish Step 5 of a customer’s special order. And because special orders refresh after a couple of hours, this is where the time element becomes more apparent in the game.

But don’t worry since there are, as mentioned, other ways to get spices without you having to go bankrupt on diamonds. Below are some ways you can efficiently manage your spice box and get what you need.

Prioritize Phone and Township Orders to Get More Spices

Aside from regular orders and special orders, there are two other order types, both of which will get you different spices without making diamond payments. These are phone orders and Township orders.

Let’s check out the differences between the two:

my cafe recipes and stories phone order
  • Phone orders: You’ll be able to fulfill phone orders once you’re able to install a phone in your café. As its name suggests, phone orders are delivered via phone but they’re pretty much similar to regular orders you get from customers.

    The difference is that phone orders come in bigger batches, meaning you’d sometimes have to make two or five or ten (or more) of the same drinks or desserts. Other times, a few phone orders may also require you to make a special order with spices, but these are few and far between.
my cafe recipes and stories township order
  • Township orders: By Level 7, you’ll get to join a Township, which is this game’s version of a community. Township orders are different from Festival tasks, which are another facet of Townships altogether.

    To access Township orders, you’ll have to go to the Township itself and check whether there are any orders available, which are marked by a location icon bearing one of your customers’ photos. Like phone orders, Township orders can be accomplished by phone as this is where the order list will appear.

If you’re running low on spices, prioritize phone and Township orders to refill your spice box so you can use them for special orders. Keep in mind that both phone and Township orders will reward you with specific spices so be mindful of which ones you accept. You may accomplish phone or Township orders yourself or assign staff to fulfill them for you.

Take note, however, that staff assigned to phone or Township orders will not take regular orders from café patrons until such time they’re finished with their task. Additionally, you can’t change what’s in your list of phone or Township orders until it refreshes a couple of hours later or if you use a booster (more on this later) to do just that.

Hold Off on Gifts and Phone or Township Orders If the Spice Box Is Full

Once you’ve gotten the groove of fulfilling phone and Township orders, it’s easy to get carried away just doing these tasks. When that happens, you might not notice that your spice box is full—and you’d be forced to throw away one type of spice to make room for another, unless you pay for an additional slot.

my cafe recipes and stories spice box

It’s important to keep in mind that your spice box only has limited slots. You can unlock more slots by paying for them with—you guessed it—diamonds. When unlocking the first extra slot, the game will only charge you with 9 diamonds.

The second slot will cost 49 diamonds, which can really put a dent in your resources but, hey, you worked hard for that spice so it would be a crying shame to throw it away. If you want to unlock a third extra slot and other succeeding slots, the game will charge you 199 diamonds for each slot, which can feel like highway robbery if you’re caught off-guard.

To keep this from happening, always check your spice box and hold off first on phone or township orders that will reward you with a spice type you don’t have a slot for. For instance, you’ll get Saffron from accepting a particular phone or Township order, but you have no more space for it.

In that case, choose another order that yields a different type of spice that’s already in your spice box. You can fulfill the order with a Saffron reward later, when you finally have space or when you can let go of other spices.

Similarly, if you receive gifts, don’t open them immediately if you have no space in your spice box since gifts will often contain one or two spice types. We suggest just stacking up your gifts and opening them later when you have at least one or two slots available in your spice box.

my cafe recipes and stories gift

To free up space in your spice box, you need to start fulfilling special orders. There’s a smart way to go about this, which we’ll discuss in the next subsection.

Always Crosscheck Between Spice Rewards and Special Orders

To properly manage your spice box, as well as your time and effort in fulfilling phone or Township orders, diligently crosscheck its contents with the special orders you currently have. For instance, you want to accomplish Bill’s special order, which is already at Step 4 and requires a Guarana spice.

my cafe recipes and stories guarana

Use this information to pick which orders you’d want to accept from the phone or Township order list. The image below shows an example of a phone or Township order that will reward you with Guarana.

Check whether you have space for Guarana in your spice box. Otherwise, accomplish first other special orders that require other spices so you can potentially free up a slot.

my cafe recipes and stories order collection

This method, though necessitating some constant back-and-forth checking, will also help you accomplish Festival tasks. Festival tasks are those that you can choose at the Township and will yield trophies and diamonds.

Take note that you can’t cancel a Festival task unless you pay for it with a whopping 50 diamonds (yikes). You can choose two Festival tasks at once and it will be active for a few days, meaning you can’t choose other tasks and must accomplish what you’ve selected or let them expire.

For this example, since you’ll be accomplishing a special order that requires Guarana, choose a Festival task with an objective that can be accomplished by fulfilling café or phone orders that align with that goal.

my cafe recipes and stories festival tasks

This way, not only can you efficiently manage your spice box but you also get extra rewards for accomplishing well-chosen orders. It’s all about having the patience to check what needs to be done and getting all your tasks in sync with each other to maximize the rewards you can earn.

Give Yourself a Boost With Boosters

my cafe recipes and stories boosters
Time to make some real money! Well, okay, not really, but in-game anyway!

Upon reaching Level 8, Fernando will have some great news for you when you talk to him: you’ve got boosters!

Boosters, as he explained, allow you to do things you usually can’t. For instance, with the help of a booster, you can sell any order with spices to a customer or instantly refresh the phone order list without having to wait for several hours until a new batch is available. Boosters can be earned as special rewards depending on whether a certain task or order will provide them. You can access booster gifts in the same way you do special gifts.

my cafe recipes and stories booster gift

Boosters have a limited number so try to use them sparingly. For instance, you’ve finished all the phone orders but are chasing after a certain Festival task requiring you to serve customers with a particular spice you don’t have yet. In this case, you can use the Refresh booster to cut down the waiting time for new phone orders so you can have the chance to get that spice you need.

Manage and Upskill Your Staff

my cafe recipes and stories staff
Ann is just human. Cut her some slack.

As with any café, your staff are a valuable part of your business. They help you wait tables, take orders, and serve customers. For the most part, in My Cafe, you’ll be pretty much a hands-on owner, but you still need your staff to take care of the regular orders and keep your customers happy.

Ann, your trusty assistant, also gives you some gifts and game-related tips from time to time, and might even reward you with a few diamonds for your response. Otherwise, you can click on your staff as they move through the floor whenever you see a gold coin icon over their head.

my cafe recipes and stories extra gold

Clicking on this will allow you to get some extra gold.

As they continue to work at the café, Ann and your other staff members will gain experience and level up. You’ll know it’s time for them to get an upgrade when they have a green arrow with the word “Up!” above their heads.

my cafe recipes and stories level up

Staff members may have different skills, such as speed or raising prices. Ann, in particular, has a bonus skill wherein you receive a certain number of gifts depending on what level she is overall. As for other servers, you’ll see which skills you can upgrade upon hiring them.

Once staff members are ready to level up, clicking on the arrow above their heads will open up their employee profile, which shows their occupation, level, experience, and the skills you can upgrade.

my cafe recipes and stories employee profile

As you can see from the image above, you can upgrade skills for free once a particular staff member is ready to level up. However, if you don’t want to wait for the next time they level up, you can spend diamonds to upgrade each skill instantly. If your employee has more than one skill, think carefully about which skill you’d want to upgrade as you might only get to do so for one.

We recommend upgrading the Speed skill instead of the Raise Prices skill since you’ll get to do the latter with boosters or when you’ve expanded the café. Meanwhile, the Speed skill is something that you can consider innate with employees and there doesn’t seem to be another way to improve that unless you give it an upgrade.

Interact With Your Customers

my cafe recipes and stories mary ditt
That story was a wild one.

Remember when we said you have a colorful cast of characters hanging out at your café? Well, prepare for some drama and riveting storylines when you interact with your customers apart from simply taking their orders.

That’s right—you can converse (see gossip) with your customers and discover their backstories, love interests, how they might be acquainted with each other outside of the café, and many more. You’ll know someone has a story to tell when a speech bubble with an ellipsis appears over their head. When you want to access story-related dialogue, all you need to do is click the option that has a pink book symbol beside it, as shown on the image above.

Although full of intrigue and mystery, following a story involving your quirky customers will rarely get you a reward. However, we still recommend interacting with them as much as you can as some banter might just get you gold, diamonds, tips, new recipes, etc., provided you’re talking to the right person. Let’s take a look at the people who’ll give you something more than just drama to chew on:

Bill’s Quizzes

my cafe recipes and stories bill's quizzes

Bill is a programmer who thinks he’s in a game world (he’s right, of course). A little awkward but extremely tech-savvy, Bill will let you answer three questions every day. If you get them right, you’ll earn gold. If you get them wrong, you won’t earn a reward.

Bill’s quizzes are fairly simple, although some questions can be really tough. You can avoid answering a question by clicking the exit button and accessing his quizzes again. However, the question will be different this time around but it will still be on the same difficulty as the last question.

Try to get all the answers to Bill’s quizzes for some extra moolah. Do this whenever this dialogue option is available. It’s easy money, especially if you’ve got a little cheat sheet called Google.

Margaret’s Dice Rolls

my cafe recipes and stories margaret's dice rolls

Margaret may be gray, but she’s as sassy and probably as dangerous as her old undercover days. This ex-spy has had 13 marriages and has obviously led a very interesting life that it’s not uncommon to see her give advice to some of the café’s patrons—with a dash of cheekiness, that is. However, she takes a liking to you, the player, and will eventually ask you to play some dice with her.

Margaret’s dice rolls are simple: You and Margaret take turns rolling two dice for three times each. If you roll a double, you get an extra roll. You tally up the numbers and the one who has the highest score wins. Of course, you place a bet, starting with 175 gold. Eventually, the bet will require a higher amount.

Unlike Bill’s quizzes, Margaret’s dice rolls are solely based on your luck so you’d really be gambling away your gold. There’s no way you can influence the results so while we would recommend trying this feature, do so at your own risk.

Koffsky’s Recipes and Trivia

my cafe recipes and stories koffsky's recipes and trivia

A former café owner himself, Koffsky is always eager to impart advice and new recipes that will help expand your café’s menu. This dialogue option is somewhat similar to Bill’s quizzes, although more informal and funnily clever at times. If Koffsky likes your answer or finds it witty, he might just reward you with gold or diamonds.

What’s more, talking to Koffsky can help you unlock recipes without you having to pay diamonds. Take advantage of this dialogue option and learn from Koffsky’s café experience!

Fernando’s Advice

my cafe recipes and stories fernando's advice

Wealthy and well-dressed, Fernando is the chair of the Café Society, a private club composed of owners of the most successful establishments. Like Koffsky, he’s eager to give you advice about how the café and restaurant industry works.

From time to time, Fernando will tell you all about how to run your café by offering advice about prices, equipment, tips, and interior design. Make a habit of talking to Fernando as this dialogue option can give you a lot of insight, especially when it comes to earning more!

“Free” Orders

my cafe recipes and stories free orders

We’ve previously mentioned that following a story involving your customers won’t really yield rewards, other than perhaps the satisfaction of knowing the conclusion to that particular episode. Be that as it may, we still recommend following all the storylines as it can lead to interesting developments that will later prompt more customers to offer dialogue exchanges that do give rewards.

Take note, however, that certain storylines might ask you to provide “free” orders so you can continue the next part of the story. Indulge your customers anyway since they’ll be spending hours hanging out at your café and paying for the rest of their orders.

Getting Additional Rewards

Naturally, the cafe profits mainly from orders and their fulfillment. However, there are other ways that you can get extra gold, diamonds, gifts, and other currencies you’ll encounter in the long run, like rubies. Here are some of them:

Complete Achievements

my cafe recipes and stories achievements
This is your journey.

Early on in the game, Koffsky will suggest that you get an awards shelf, which is the item you need to collect achievements. Achievements are long-term, recurring tasks that you need to accomplish so you can get extra diamonds.

Examples of achievements are serving a certain number of customers, fulfilling a certain amount of phone orders, collecting gold from employees, and the like. Check your awards shelf for completed achievements so you’ll know what tasks you’re close to completing and so that you can claim your diamond rewards.

Finish Quests

my cafe recipes and stories quests
Behold: the road to greatness.

Aside from Festival or Township tasks, you’ll also get to unlock quests. These are active for only a few days so consider them to be limited-time events. The quest we’ve caught for this playthrough follows Buster, a cute little doggo whose objective is to survey the snowy area to complete tasks and find items hidden in bushes, trees, etc.

In navigating his way to his destination, Buster will have to clear out obstacles like snow piles, rocks, diamond mounds, and the like by spending energy. Buster has a base energy of 120 but he’ll encounter energy packs along the way to replenish a little bit of what he’s spent.

my cafe recipes and stories buster

As he clears obstacles, he’ll slowly fill up a meter and once this is filled, you’ll get extra rewards like more energy to play quests, rubies, decor, and even lock boxes that have puzzle pieces inside them.

my cafe recipes and stories energy

When all a certain set of puzzle pieces are all found, you’ll get to collect stylish machines for your café (more about this in the next section).

my cafe recipes and stories machine collection

If you want a break from managing your café, going on quests is a perfect way to keep playing and earning rewards without being burnt out from just doing orders. Besides, following Buster as he tries to find hidden items is not only cute but also pretty fun and challenging!

Use Stylish Machines

my cafe recipes and stories stylish machine
These could become neat conversation pieces.

As with any growing café, whether that’s in a game or in real life, you’re eventually going to get a lot of customers and tons of orders. Thus, upgrading your equipment may be required. In My Cafe, these so-called upgrades come in the form of “stylish machines” and you can get them mainly by purchasing them in the bank with diamonds or gold. Every day, the offers will be refreshed with different discounts.

my cafe recipes and stories daily special offers

Sometimes, you’d also get a separate sale offer for an entirely different stylish machine that isn’t listed in the bank, but this, too, would only last for a limited time.

my cafe recipes and stories stylish three cup espresso machine

Otherwise, try playing and completing quests so you can find all the puzzle pieces that can get you different stylish machines. Keep in mind, though, that puzzle pieces you’ll find will be at random so luck will basically dictate what kind of stylish machine you’ll end up getting.

If you have the chance to get these stylish machines, do so! This is because stylish machines will get you bonus rewards like rubies whenever you deliver orders to customers using that specific machine. For instance, you get a Stylish Tea Machine for free when this feature is first introduced. Whenever you deliver an order with tea in it, you’ll get 1 ruby aside from the payment you’d normally earn.

If you’re willing to pay for them despite their expensive cost, we recommend investing in stylish machines that can deliver multiple beverages, such as two-cup or three-cup stylish machines. These are definitely more costly than one-cup stylish machines but it’s an investment that will pay off in the long run, especially when you want to speed up bulk orders coming from the phone or Township.

Watch Ads

my cafe recipes and stories surprise
A gift? For moi? Merci beaucoup!

We know, we know—ads aren’t the best way to get extra rewards, but the good news is that My Cafe doesn’t force you to watch them. You can always ignore them and the option to watch ads doesn’t pop up as frequently enough to disrupt your experience. Still, when you come across the option to watch ads, we suggest that you consider doing so as you’ll get a variety of rewards. Here’s a quick rundown of where you can watch ads and what they might yield as rewards:

  • On the TV in your café whenever the screen displays a picture. Here, you can earn mostly gold and diamonds.
  • Upon logging into the game. This will come as a “surprise,” as shown in the image at the beginning of this section. Gold and diamonds are also primary rewards.
  • You can watch an ad if you want to select more than one random Daily Bonus reward from the ten mystery gift boxes. Gold and diamonds of varying amounts are also primary rewards. You may watch multiple ads to open perhaps two or three more gift boxes but, eventually, you’ll have to open gift boxes by spending tickets for them or just waiting for the timer to refresh.
  • When you log off, your staff continues to take orders. Thus, when you log back in after being away for a couple of hours, you’ll be shown how much profit you’ve both earned and lost while you were gone. Sometimes, the game will let you watch an ad so you can earn some extra gold on top of your overall takings.
  • From time to time, you’ll see an alarm clock with a play button floating over the side of the screen. This means you can watch an ad for some extra gold or diamonds.
  • When your phone order list is empty, you usually need to wait for a couple of hours before the list refreshes. However, there are times when you’d get one order even before the timer expires. You’ll be asked to watch an ad to accept this early order.
     
  • Similar to your café, you’ll also have a TV at the starting area of a quest you’ve entered. If the screen shows a picture, you may watch an ad to gain extra energy.
my cafe recipes and stories cat

Again, you may choose to opt out of ads if you don’t feel like watching any, or if you feel that you can do away with the rewards at the moment. But even though the rewards may sometimes seem small, most ads last for 30 to 45 seconds at best so you might as well treat them as small breaks from which you can gain additional rewards. It’s a win-win for you and the devs.

This concludes our guide for My Cafe: Recipes and Stories! We hope our tips and tricks were able to give you an idea of how you can efficiently manage your menu and prices, spices, profits, and everything in between!

Plus, you get to enjoy being a successful café owner while also following the intrigue and mystery surrounding your quirky but loyal patrons. Do you have other tips and tricks you want to share with your fellow café owners? Let us know in the comment box below!

Ayesha

Tuesday 22nd of June 2021

After some level, for few items it says , “low level device” …. So till u don’t upgrade ur device u can’t make some recipes so the level doesn’t goes forward … so don’t waste ur time playing this game . After playing and purchasing an equipment for 1,80,00000 which takes u many days to earn and than an error due to which u can’t take the stage further…

Loren

Monday 20th of July 2020

What style gives the largest tips? Thank you!

Nicole Noe

Tuesday 9th of June 2020

I get you have to double-tap the drinks to make them but how do you serve them to people? I'm so confused on this! Help!

Cookielove

Tuesday 14th of January 2020

After sending spices to treasury where they go??? And if I want them back from where can I get them back???

Jess

Thursday 7th of November 2019

Hi What are the chances of getting gold in a simple gift does anyone know? And also can normal players send each other spices as I have two accounts and on one I have saffron and on the other I need it but don’t have it? Thanks ♥️

Douinette

Monday 13th of January 2020

Simple gifts will only award some rose petals, anis, maybe some coins and maybe very little diamonds. Yo can't get anything else from simple gifts.