[GameSpot] - Cat Cafe Manager Tips For Beginners

[343iBot]

Cat Cafe Manager is the sort of game where you likely know just by reading its name whether or not it's something you'd enjoy. It's cats. It's a cafe. You manage them. For some people, such a setup is as heavenly as the scent of morning espresso. Still, the game throws a lot of information at you right away, and the controls don't always make as much sense as they should. That means you may soon find yourself drowning in kitty litter and coffee grinds. But with our tips guide, you can turn your modest cafe into a juggernaut of both paninis and pets. Here are some essential tips for Cat Cafe Manager.

Invest in chair slots first

Once you open your cafe, you'll gain access to the Shrine, the physical representation of your skill tree, where you can work on projects that unlock new menu items, cat toys, and more. But the most important unlockable in the Shrine is the number of chair slots you have. More chair slots means being able to seat more customers, which can increase revenue exponentially. Think of it like investing in better XP gains early on in an RPG; the sooner you do it, the more rewards you will reap. This should be the first project in which you invest your time.

Invest in staff second

After you've finished the first chair slot project, but before you go on unlocking more, invest in being able to hire staff. It's important to do this next rather than gain even more chair slots because you'll need a helping hand to manage the influx of customers once your place really starts getting busy. More chairs without any co-workers means you'll be in the weeds all day long. Hire the right person for the job by checking the note board in the town center.

The center of town is the hub of all things to keep your business.

Work toward new unlocks constantly

After you get those two very important projects done, the rest is up to you and of lesser consequence. The only important thing to note here is to ensure you're always, always, always working toward one goal or another. As long as a project is active, the hearts you earn--which accrue based on customer satisfaction--will go toward completing it. Having an active project means those hearts will directly contribute to finishing projects and unlocking new decor, more cat slots, and other goods and services that will turn you into the cat cafe mogul you aspire to be.

Tailor your advertising to your needs

One of the most confusing parts about Cat Cafe Manager is the UI and all of its different currencies that you're greeted with right away. This system is actually quite lovely once you get the hang of it. Here's what to know: Every "class" of customer pays in a different currency (on top of the universal hearts they dole out). When advertising, you'll want to focus your ads toward the group that will pay in the currency you need.

Advertising seems to nearly guarantee the type of the people who will visit your cafe, so putting flyers in front of the right faces is key to acquiring more of exactly what you need and none of what you don't. For a quick primer on who pays with what and what it's used for, use our list below.

Currency	Customer Type	Spent On
Hearts	All	Shrine projects
Fabrics (green)	Vagrants	Chairs and tables
Nectar (purple)	Witches	Recipes and ingredients
Jewels (red)	Artists	Furniture
Fish (blue)	Fisherfolk	Cat food and cat toys
Gold (gold)	Businesspeople	Special items (rare furniture, rare cat toys, etc.)
Materials (brown)	Punks	Building materials

If you're loaded up on materials and gold, but lacking in nectar and fabrics, tailor your advertising away from punks and businesspeople and toward vagrants and witches for a few business hours--if not several days. Just be sure to re-align your ads with your needs on a regular basis. Sometimes, I'd forget to adjust and find myself suddenly short on supplies I once had in abundance.

Train your staff--and cats--to meet different needs

As you hire staff and bring in more stray cats, you'll unlock skill points for everyone. For staff, these can be spent on improving their skills such as cooking, cleaning, and serving. Meanwhile, cats can improve their bathroom routine, independence, and even their compatibility with certain customer classes. With that in mind, have a long-term goal for your cafe and tailor your workers and kitties to meet that goal. Want to serve the best food in town to only your town's less fortunate? Make sure staff are skilled in the kitchen and your cats love curling up next to the vagrants that come in.

Whatever your plan is, also be sure to actually check for those skill points. They accrue pretty quickly, but the game doesn't really call much attention to them. You'll want to peek at the star count in the top left corner of your screen, and when you've got either cat skill points or staff skill points to spend, do so as soon as possible to make your cafe even better.

Brace for goodbyes

One of the hard lessons of Cat Cafe Manager is that your bistro is only meant to be a temporary residence for your cats. As you level them up, eventually you're supposed to find them their "Forever Homes." To do this, you check the note board--the same one featuring prospective employees--and look for the flyers left by townspeople wanting to adopt cats.

Goodbyes are tough, and you'll probably grow attached to your cats, but they're not in short supply, and knowing they will be well taken care of is a sweet consolation prize. On the bright side, if you really want to gamify it, the higher level your adopted cat is, the more rewards you'll get from the adopting family. With that in mind, it's wise to match your wisest cats to the right families as it'll help you keep rewards flowing--and in turn, keep newer cats meowing outside the cafe.

Call your regulars every day

Any small-town cafe worth its tip jar will have regulars, customers who come in often and maybe even order the same thing every day. In Cat Cafe Manager, you have six regulars, each of whom represents one of the different customer types. Each morning, you can call one regular and ask them to visit the cafe. They'll always say yes, so you should decide who you call based on the friendship level you've earned with each of them. Certain rewards in the Shrine will require having set numbers of regulars at set levels. This means you'll want to have everyone in on a rotating basis. Yes, even Mateo, the town's cash-grabbing sellout.

Regular customers are key to running a successful cat cafe.

Gallery

You can invite the same person multiple days in a row too, which is good to keep in mind when you are trying to get to a particular level with any customer type. These regulars sort of speak for their classes, so improving things with them will actually improve your standing with customers like them too.

Tailor your menu around your supply

Sometimes you won't want to serve everything on your menu. Maybe you're fresh out of herbs, or would prefer to keep your cafe dairy-free. You can customize what you're serving at any time in the, uh, menu menu--I guess that's what you'd call it. It's important to note which items are ordered by each customer type, though, because if you're only advertising to certain customers but don't have their favorites on the menu, they'll leave dissatisfied. Thankfully, that information is clearly displayed when customizing your menu options.

Have a cafe theme in mind

One reasonable endgame goal is to have a decorative theme in mind for your cafe. The early look of your cafe will be quite chaotic, with a mish-mash of bar stools, hipster countertops, and witchy cutting boards, but in time you'll have unlocked enough to focus on a singular style. You could even reinvent yourself over time, swapping out one theme for another. A theme is important as customers and staff both prefer certain environments. If you're hiring staff that work better when in a magic-themed cafe, be sure to dress up the bistro in cauldrons and pointy hats. This isn't something you'll even be able to do for a while, as first you need to unlock all of the various options. But once you do, you can really enhance the aesthetics of your small business.

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