Tips and Tricks Archives

Dispelling Some Tips

Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 3:01 pm  
Comments (2)

So I thought I might dazzle you with some brilliant observations and tips this week. Does the order of the dishes on the serving tray affect how often they get served? Can you make some dishes sell faster by changing the order? What about some dishes selling faster because of what they are? Does chocolate cake sell faster than tostadas? Well, according to my observations, no and no. (Hmmmmm)

I love good tip columns. I spend my spare time looking through them, which is obviously how I found this fine place. But I have a couple of rules;
#1 I don’t steal. Cheating programs that get you Café Cash, that you can only normally get from buying them from Zynga, is stealing. No Thanks.
#2 I don’t mess around with other people’s servers. I’m a Network Administrator by trade, so I’d rather saw off a leg than mess around with the Zynga servers. So a cheat program that will get me extra stoves and counters, by messing with their servers is just not my style.

What does that leave? Ones like the fine tips in Ethan Ward’s book that most of us have. Places where the game can be manipulated to give us an edge. Like figuring out how to organize your dishes to make them go faster, or do your waiters that play Café World serve faster than those that don’t? (Nope) Or one I found for massive amounts of free food. What you’re supposed to do is open your café in Firefox, and go to the free gifts. Next you open those free gifts in different tabs. Next you take each step to giving the gift of food to the same friends in each tab, one at a time. Lastly going back and sending them in all in one mass send.

The gentleman passing this on adds that he sent out 20 at a time doing this simple trick. Does it work? Nope. I tried it from mine and my daughter’s accounts. You get one order of free food, and a crap load of sent mistakes.

So this issue’s tips aren’t the brainstorms, just the clouds. But I’ll keep plugging. And please keep sending in more for me to try, if it works, I’ll give you credit.

Bob

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What’s the Point? Friends and Neighbors

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 9:49 pm  
Comments (1)

I suppose you’ve seen the new Café World Dish; Creme Fraiche Caviar.  This 30 minute dish will make you a whopping 72 coins and 22 total CP’s.  Plenty of people out there mad about it too; I’ve been reading in the blogs.  Everybody seems to think this dish is a total waste of time.  I sure don’t.

I made 1 batch.  With my 16 stoves that means I made 1,344 dishes to serve.  With my buzz rating and setup, that typically means 2 – 9 hours or so.  However I served this dish for almost 3 days at 8 coins a pop because I got thousands from my friends.

And I think this was the point that Zynga was trying to make here.  Their games give all sorts of bonuses to those with a big neighbor list.  And in my humble opinion that’s what this was; a block party dish.  When you make a new batch of something each day, you get the opportunity to give 100 of whatever it is out to your friends.  You do that, and gather up the ones your neighbors put out and serve it all up.  And it only took you 30 minutes to give out a dish to all your friends that made them each 800 coins!

That’s not a bad holiday gift.  Check out how long it takes to make other 8 coin dishes.  Of course the biggest gains in this dish were for the people that play in a community.  Like myself.

My neighbors have me trained, when a new dish comes out we all make it and we all share.  And we try to make as many different things each day as is reasonable.  The Gingerbread Houses weren’t a real good deal either in money or CP’s, but we all made ‘em.  Some because they cute, and some to share.  I made one batch, but I’ve been serving them for 5 days now, and I just got a couple hundred more.  Sometimes to see the point, you got to look at the bigger picture.

Bob, Crossroads Cafe

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Cafe World Problem – Saving

Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 2:49 pm  
Comments (10)

What I see from what are people repeatedly looking for, there is a big Cafe World problem with saving. I`ve done some research and I think this could be a solution for your Cafe World saving problem.

This post is a variation of the previous post Cafe World Problems.

First, I was looking for any information from Zynga, which should be the best source. I don`t know how you, but I`m not satisfied with information Zynga is releasing. Well, not releasing. I`d expect more information to be on their website.

Cafe World Problem – Browser

Anyway, I`ve found on their website recommendation about using internet browser:

Zynga games are designed to be used with most browsers, however there are several documented issues surrounding Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) and Flash Content.

If you are using IE8 we suggest that you try a new browser such as Firefox 3+, Safari 4, or Google Chrome. Internet Explorer v.6 or 7 should also be acceptable.

Then I looked at statistics from my pages to see what browsers are used by the visitors. I was surprised!

Cafe World Elite Visitors - Browser Usage

Cafe World Elite Visitors - Browser Usage

36% of visitors are still using Internet explorer. Generally I don`t recommend using Internet explorer for browsing, because it`s not safe. If you are using Internet explorer even for playing Cafe World, I`d recommend you to try a different browser. From my testing Google Chrome is the best choice – it`s safe and it`s fast. Get Google Chrome.

Cafe World Problem – Flash

For a smooth running of Cafe World, Zynga recommends the latest flash. It`s natural, because Cafe World is made in flash. I just checked the latest version of flash and it is 10.0.32.18. Now let`s have a look at another graph:

Cafe World Elite Visitors - Flash

Cafe World Elite Visitors - Flash

It`s much better than using of internet browsers, but still 15% doesn`t have the latest version. If you are not sure what version you have, I`d recommend you to go to the Adobe website and download the latest version of flash.

Cafe World Problem – Saving

Many people are complaining about a problem with saving in Cafe World. Interesting is that it is connected with Cafe World expansion for 400k. Apparently, there is some problem between the game and servers, which don`t seem to recognize your cafe after the expansion.

The problem people are having is that they are not able to save their game. I`ve done some research and found out that there is a solution which seems to work. Because I didn`t buy the expansion, I don`t have the experience, but it should work.

To solve the problem with saving your cafe on Zynga`s servers, you need to get back your cafe to the default:

  1. change the flooring to the default (the wooden floor). Some people say it`s enough to make the floor wooden just at the place where the expansion has taken the place.
  2. change the wall color to the default (the blue walls). Again, some people say it`s not necessary to do the whole cafe, just the place of the expansion extension.
  3. visit someone`s cafe and get back
  4. when you get back, your cafe should be saved after your changes

Let me know in the comments whether this solution of Cafe World problem with savings has solved your problem, or if you`ve figured out something better.

The last day Zynga has made some change, so maybe it`s possible that the problem with saving is not actual anymore.

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Cafe World Menu Mastery with LaughDonor`s Spreadhseet

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm  
Comments (1)

If your menu in Cafe World isn`t perfectly prepared, you are leaving Cafe Coins (and Buzz Rating) on a table and not progressing as fast as you could if your Cafe World menu was planned and prepared according to your circumstances. Learn to use LaughDonor`s Spreadsheet.

Are you new to Cafe World? Then I suggest you to read the Beginner`s Walkthrough article. Otherwise read on, I`d like to show you how to use LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreadsheet to make your Cafe World Menu flawless.

No matter how long some chefs has been playing Cafe World, I still see some imperfections in what they cook. It`s not that they don`t make money out of it, it`s just they could do a lot more money, if they would be thinking about what and when they cook it.

LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreadsheet

Honestly, I have no idea who LaughDonor is, but as soon as I found his spreadsheet, I started to love this guy. His spreadsheet is full of so valuable information, that I think he could start selling it right away and he would be bury with money (and you with Cafe Coins :)

What can be so valuable in his file? Well, let me point out some things you can find in that file:

  • needed Cafe Points to achieve certain levels
  • bonuses after achieving certain levels
  • dish cost
  • dish cook time
  • dish spoil time
  • Cafe Points for cooking a dish
  • how many stoves you need to gain as much Cafe Coins for a particular food (and feed 105 Buzz Rating)
  • Cafe Coins/servings
  • Cafe Points/min/hr
  • Profit
  • …..

I`m telling you, LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreadsheet could be selling for a few bucks. But before LaughDonor changes his mind, let`s have a look how you can benefit from his brilliant work. Open up LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreasheet and let`s start!

Please note that LaughDonor is continuously working on that sheet, so it might look a little bit different than my screenshot.

Your screen with the Cafe World Spreadsheet should look like this (screenshot is approximately 400kB big):

LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreadsheet screenshot
LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreadsheet screenshot

Cafe World Menu Basics:

Before you start changing (or creating) your menu, you need to think about what you want to achieve right now, because  there is a big difference in planing your Cafe World Menu, if you want to increase your Buzz Rating, earn more Cafe Coins, or if you want to level up quickly. Think about that.

This step is crucial, you won`t level up quickly, if you are focusing on cooking dishes that have the smallest amount of Cafe Points for cooking and serving. And you won`t increase your Buzz Rating, if you`re cooking dishes that take 24 hours to cook, whilst your cafe is full of customers, but they don`t have anything to eat.

There is no way you can earn the most money out of your dishes, level up quickly and keep increasing your Buzz Rating at the same time. Depending on what level you are right now, you need to choose one area where you want to get better and then focus on that. After your goal is achieved (and it can take from a couple of minutes to hours or days), move on to the next thing you want to improve.

Cafe World Menu: Increasing Buzz Rating

In order to increase your Buzz Rating, you need to have enough of food for your customers. At the same time, as your Buzz Rating is going to increase, you`ll need more and more food. So basically you need dishes that have:

  • as many servings as possible
  • cook time as low as possible

Those criteria ensure you that you`ll be able to cook dishes very quickly and that there`s gonna be enough of servings, so your customers are gonna be served, they will give you positive Buzz Rating and in the end more customers will be coming to your cafe.

Based on that criteria, have a look at LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreadsheet and do this one powerful click: click on Dishes: Sorted by serving.

You should see something similar to this screenshot:

Cafe World Menu - Increasing Buzz Rating

Cafe World Menu - Increasing Buzz Rating

Cafe World Dish: Super Chunk Fruit Salad

Cafe World Dish: Super Chunk Fruit Salad

As you can see, Super Chunk Fruit Salad is the dish you want to cook in order to easily increase your Buzz Rating. It has 100 servings and it cooks 15 minutes, which means you can create 400 servings on one stove. Of course you have more stoves, so you can multiply the servings by your stoves.

Cafe World Menu: Earning Cafe Coins as Fast as Possible

Let`s repeat the same process of reading in LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreadsheet, but this time we want to focus on earning Cafe Coins as fast as possible. The criteria for a dish that would make us as many Cafe Coins as possible are:

  • the shortest time cook as possible
  • OR the highest rate per serving

That depends if we have time for cooking the dish all over again, or not. If we have the time, then we are looking for a dish with the shortest time cook. If we don`t have the time, then we need to know when we are able to get back to Cafe World again and based on that look for a dish that fits your time.

Because I assume you are a little bit addicted to Cafe World and want to get as high as possible, I pretend you have several hours a day for cooking.

So, look again on the spreadsheet. This time click on Dishes: Sorted by profit.

Cafe World Menu: Earning Cafe Coins

Cafe World Menu - Earning Cafe Coins

Cafe World Dish: Bacon Cheeseburger

Cafe World Dish: Bacon Cheeseburger

I hope I didn`t spoil your surprise. Isn`t that interesting? If you want to earn as many Cafe Coins as possible, you need to cook the dish that you are allowed to cook from the beginning? Well, I was surprised too…

Cafe World Menu: Leveling as Quickly as Possible

The last strategy for level up as fast as possible in Cafe World. For leveling up we need a dish that:

  • gives us the most Cafe Points per preparing and also serving
  • cooks the smallest amount of time so that we can obtain the Cafe Points over and over again

So for the last time in this article, let`s have a look on the LaughDonor`s Cafe World Spreadsheet. This time we need to sort the table by clicking on Dishes: Sorted by CP

Cafe World Menu - Gaining Cafe Points

Cafe World Menu - Gaining Cafe Points

Cafe World Dish: Bacon Cheeseburger

Cafe World Dish: Bacon Cheeseburger

And there you go. Again Bacon Cheeseburger :) Seems like all you need is to cook this dish with Super Chunk Fruit Salad (if you have the time for cooking those dishes all over again).

Cafe World Menu: Final Note

Bare in your mind that customers don`t care what you cook. If you have just one dish (Bacon Cheeseburger) which you cook all over again for the whole week, they will still be coming into your cafe.

The same rule for your a decoration of your cafe – even if your cafe looks like a school canteen, it doesn`t matter.

That`s it, neighbors. Happy cooking.

P.S.: If you want to move your cafe to the next level, I recommend you one of the Cafe World Guides.

Cafe World Secrets Guide

Cafe World Secrets Guide

Cafe World Domination Guide

Cafe World Domination Guide

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Cafe World Problems

Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 11:18 am  
Comments (149)

Experiencing problems with loading your Cafe World? Or do you have a problem that your Cafe World goes really slow? Read on, I`ll tell you what to do.

Cafe World runs on Facebook as an additional application and it uses Adobe Flash player and Javascript functions. You don`t need to worry about what are those terms. The important thing for you is that if you are experiencing that your Cafe World game is slow or you having problem with loading and entering the game, there are several steps you need to check.

Cafe World Problems: Possible Solutions

  1. Do you have the latest Flash player? Recently the latest version is 10.0.32.18. If not, go to Adobe website
  2. If you have many tabs opened, close them and restart your browser (close and open again after a while).
  3. Are there any other things running in the background of your computer? Like a movie or something that is demanding on a performance.
  4. Try a different browser – if you are using Internet explorer, try Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox (Safari or Opera etc.).
  5. Clean up your temporary memory – cache.

Cafe World Problems: Clearing your cache

Firefox 3:

  1. Tools
  2. Clear Private Data
  3. Close and open again the browser

Opera 9.x

  1. Tools
  2. Preferences
  3. Advanced
  4. History
  5. Disk cache section – Empty now
  6. Close and open again the browser

Safari

  1. From the Safari menu, click Empty Cache.
  2. When asked: “Are you sure you want to empty the cache?” click Empty.
  3. From the Safari menu, click Preferences.
  4. From the Security dialog box, click Bookmarks.
  5. Click Show Cookies.
  6. From the Cookie dialog box, click Remove All.
  7. Close and open again the browser

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7/8

  1. Tools
  2. Internet options
  3. Browsing history
  4. Delete – Delete all
  5. Close and open again the browser

If it is still slow, the problem might be in your processor. Try to reduce the quality of the graphics in Cafe World. This can be done in the menu in the right down corner – the small icon of an eye (if you can`t find it, refer to my The Beginner`s Walkthrough Guide, number 15).

What definitely helps me is opening Google Chrome, without any additional tabs, and play Cafe World in it. So far the best solution I`ve come up with.

Was this helpful? Or are you experiencing a different problem? Let me know in comments or via contact form.

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Cafe World Spoil Time

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 4:09 pm  
Comments (1)

Wondered how long does it take before your cooked dish gets spoiled? Because the time is not same for all dishes, it`s hard to figure out, if you don`t want to spend your time and money.

When I started playing Cafe World, I had no idea how it works. So I cooked a dish as the tutorial guided me and then logged out. When I logged in to my cafe, I saw flies all around my cafe, rotten meals on my stoves and of course no customer in my cafe. My dishes get spoiled. Sound familiar? :)

I was wondering how long does it take for each dish, so I could know how long I have. And thanks to the internet I`ve finally found what I needed to know. Now my soul can rest. And if you`ve been wondering as well, your soul can rest with mine.

Cafe World Spoil Time

So, the idea is that you want to know how much time you have before the dish gets spoiled. That means cooking time plus how long can be the dish on a stove before it gets disgusting.

Cafe World Spoil Times

Cafe World Spoil Times

As I showed you in a Cafe World Menu Mastery with LaughDonor`s Spreadsheet, to figure out spoiling times we use the famous spreadsheet as well.

Open up the LaughDonor`s Spreadsheet and concentrate on the column called Spoil. Look at the random dishes and compare the cook times with spoil times:

  • Bacon Cheeseburger – 5 mins vs. 6 mins
  • Chips & Guacamole – 3 mins vs. 3:36 mins
  • Pumpkin Pie – 12 mins vs. 14:24 mins
  • Tony`s Classic Pizza – 5 mins vs. 6 mins
  • ….

You don`t have to be Einstein to figure out that the formula for spoil time is

Spoil time = (cook time) * 1.2

Now you know how spoil time in Cafe World works, so plan your Cafe World menu accordingly and start making some money!

P.S.: If you want to move your cafe to the next level, I recommend you one of the Cafe World Guides.

Cafe World Secrets Guide

Cafe World Secrets Guide

Cafe World Domination Guide

Cafe World Domination Guide

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The Beginner`s Walkthrough in Cafe World

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 10:04 am  
Comments (3)

Cafe World is a relatively new game and that`s why I want to dedicate this post to explaining some basics. It will be sort of beginner`s walkthrough or beginner`s guide.

If you have signed in to your cafe in Cafe World, you should be familiar with the following picture. If you haven`t signed in to your cafe in Cafe World, you can have an advantage now, because when you`ll sign, you`ll know exactly where are things placed and what is their purpose. Let`s have a look on the following picture:

Cafe World: Beginner`s walkthrough

Cafe World: Beginner`s walkthrough

I made a screenshot almost at the beginning, so this should be the same picture you`ve seen or you`re going to see. Well, except the numbers, I`ve added them there to make the description easier to follow.

Cafe World: The Beginner`s Walkthrough

Now I`m gonna link my description with the numbers in the picture.

  1. Cafe Coins - those coins represent a currency. You use Cafe Coins for buying new equipment to your cafe, hiring new employees, buying dishes to cook or expanding your cafe. Everytime a customer leaves your cafe after having a meal, he/she pays you a particular amount of Cafe Coins for the meal. If you feel you don`t have enough, you can buy more Cafe Coins for your real money.
  2. Cafe Cash - not easy to earn, so be careful in using them. Mostly Cafe Cash is used for advanced equipment or as an alternative for your Cafe Coins. Zynga has made those points hard to earn in one obvious reason: if you want to increase your Cafe Cash, you can do it very easily, but prepare to use your real money. I wouldn`t recommend that, even if the price isn`t that big (by the time writing this article you could have 120 Cafe Cash for $19.99), I believe it`s still a waste of your money.
  3. Cafe Points - sort of your experience. The more experienced you get, the higher level you achieve, the more dishes you can cook and the more things you can buy to decorate/rebuild your cafe. You gain Cafe Points for making a dish (every time you slice, peel etc), when the dish is finished you get Cafe Points and you can also gain more Cafe Points by visiting your neighbors. For every level you need to gain a particular amount of Cafe Points. When you reach the particular amount of Cafe Points, you receive a level up and some things (dishes, drinks, equpiment) can be unlocked – that depends on the level you are currently having.
  4. Cafe Name - by default, name of your cafe is created by formula [first name]`s cafe, which you can easily change by clicking on the name and rewrite it to whatever you want.
  5. Buzz Rating - buzz rating reflects your service and how many customers are going to coming in to your cafe. Deeper information about Buzz rating you can read in my article Keeping Buzz rating in Cafe World.
  6. Manage Friends - I know, it sounds horrible, like your friends in Cafe World are some kind of figurines, but in this meaning it`s a list of your friends you`ve hired. In this menu you can hire another friend as your employee (if your current level allows it) or you can fire your friend if you think he/she is not doing his/her job.
  7. Customize - this feature allows you to buy new equipment to your cafe (chairs, tables, plants, walls etc) and you`ll use it very often. Of course, you`re gonna need Cafe Coins to buy new stuff.
  8. Change Clothes - the default look of ourselves doesn`t look so good, so why don`t dress a little bit differently, right? You can change boots, pants, t-shirt, hair, glasses, color, etc. But don`t be too much creative from the beginning, because the way you are dressed doesn`t have anything to do with your customers or cafe. It`s just a look, so don`t spend valuable money until you have enough.
  9. Cookbook - your treasury chest. In the Cookbook you have all your dishes you can cook or you`ll cook on a higher level. You can find in the Cookbook how long a particular dish is going to cook, how much does it cost, how much customers will pay for one serving and how many servings you`ll have from one cooking.
  10. Functional - when you achieve a new level and the new level allows you to buy another stove or a counter, you should go here. As many things in Cafe World, your service level (buzz rating) isn`t influenced with the way your cafe looks. It`s just for you, so in the beginning I recommend buying the default ugly stuff, which will do the work as well as more expensive things.
  11. Expand Cafe - when you feel you have extra money and want to expand your cafe, so more customers can fit in.
  12. Become a fan - makes you a fan of Cafe World on Facebook.
  13. Use Gifts - because Cafe World is a social game, it pushes you to socialize with your friends (and to increase the amount of people playing Cafe World) and it`s done in many ways, but in this case you have a chance to send gifts to your neighbors (for free), so they`ll receive from you for free 100 Bacon cheesburgers, for example. It`s a terrific way to make some extra money without an effort. When someone gives you a gift, you should find it here.
  14. Coming soon - unknown so far :)
  15. From top and left: saving your game before leaving (the game saves anyway, but by this you make sure it`s really saved and a connection between you and the server isn`t lost); changing a quality of the graphics (useful if your pc is slower); zooming in; zooming out; turning on/off music; turning on/off sounds

In case you experience some problems with Cafe World, check out my article Cafe World Problems.

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Keeping Buzz Rating in Cafe World

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 9:09 am  
Comments (1)

I`ve seen many people having problems with keeping the Buzz rating growing in Cafe World. I`ve decided to have a look what influences the Buzz rating and what you should focus on in Cafe World.

First things first. I don`t want anyone to be lost, so I`d like to start first with making sure everyone knows where to find the Buzz rating in Cafe World. Well, the Buzz rating is the number in the right upper corner, right next to the thumb up image. When you started your Cafe World game, there must have been number 5.0, which is the lowest the Buzz rating in Cafe World. You can`t drop to lower numbers.

Cafe World: Buzz rating
Cafe World: Buzz rating

Cafe World: What is the Buzz rating

So we know where to find the buzz rating in Cafe world, but we are not sure what it does. Well, basically buzz rating is a word of mouth from the real world. It`s a personal advertisement.

If you go to a good restaurant and you are there satisfied, it`s a very good chance that you`ll recommend that restaurant, right? In Cafe World the Buzz rating works in the same way. If you satisfy your customers, they will increase your Buzz rating. But if you don`t satisfy your customers, they will decrease your Buzz rating.

Now, the higher your Buzz rating in Cafe World is, the more customers are walking to your cafe. Logically, if you want to earn money, you need to satisfy your customers in order to attract more customers and therefore earn more money.

Cafe World: Keeping the Buzz rating

By now we know where to find the Buzz rating in Cafe World, we also know what good it is for, but we don`t know yet how exactly increase or decrease the Buzz rating.

And again, it works the same way as in the real world. What makes you to spread the word about a restaurant? Good service and good food, right?

So, in order to keep increasing your Buzz rating, you need to make sure, that:

  1. when a customers walks into your cafe, he/she has a free table
  2. when a customer sits down, he/she doesn`t have a empty plate on the table
  3. when a customer sits down, he/she will be served in a few seconds

If a customer doesn`t have a free spot, sits to a table where is an empty plate or isn`t served within a few seconds, he/she leaves and gives you bad Buzz rating.

But if a customer has a free spot, sits to a clean table and is served within a few seconds, he/she pays you for a meal and also gives you positive Buzz rating.

For every positive Buzz rating you get 0.1 point.

For every negative Buzz rating you are taken 1.0 point.

Yeah, that`s right – it`s slower process to gain higher Buzz rating than if the Buzz rating drops. In Cafe World you need to watch out for free space, clean tables and fast serving if you want to be keeping your Buzz rating on a high level. But it`s not as difficult as it sounds. I`ll show you some tips in the followings posts, don`t worry.

Now you know what influences your buzz rating, so you should be able to keep it. But what you should do if you want to increase it and hit the magical 105 Buzz rating? Well, I`ve written an article about planning your menu to achieve the highest Buzz rating, earn more Cafe Coins or gain more Cafe Points => Cafe World Menu Mastery with LaughDonor`s Spreadhseet.

P.S.: If you want to move your cafe to the next level, I recommend you one of the Cafe World Guides.

Cafe World Secrets Guide

Cafe World Secrets Guide

Cafe World Domination Guide

Cafe World Domination Guide

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