Cat Coffee Shop — Play Free Online

Cat Coffee Shop is an idle management game by Lutte, released on Poki in February 2024. You play a small cat who opens a café from almost nothing: an empty wooden floor, a menu board, a few potted plants and a little cash. Customers walk in, you serve them, and the money they leave behind pays for the next table, the next machine and eventually extra staff.

Controls

On a computer, walk with the arrow keys or WASD; the opening tutorial prompt literally says "Move with arrows!". You can also click and drag with the mouse to steer. On a phone or tablet the same drag works with a finger, and the build draws an on-screen joystick for it. Glowing spots with a price tag mark the things you can buy next, and a large yellow arrow points to the first one when the game starts.

Running the café

The first purchase the game points you to is a single table. Once you have seating, customers queue up, order something, sit down and eat. Your job is to bring each order from the right machine, pick up the money customers drop, and clean the table afterwards. You can carry several items in a stack, up to a limit, which lets you cover more than one order per trip. The build also includes a trash bin for food.

The machines in the build cover a whole breakfast counter: a coffee maker, a juicer, a serving counter, an ice cream machine, a chocolate milk jug, a donut oven, a teapot, a frying pan, a toaster and a cutting board. There is also a drive-thru where cars pull up and wait for their food.

Upgrades and staff

The store, opened with the basket button on the right of the screen, has sections for Shops, Hats, Powers, Others and My Shops. Hats change how your cat looks, powers are the upgrades that make you better at the job, and the shop sections deal with opening further cafés. You can also hire employees who take over parts of the work. Staff in the build have a sleep timer and a dozing animation with floating "zzz", so a helper can nod off on the job.

The game also ships a Halloween look, with its own floor, walls, entrance, grass, cars, music and cat outfits.

Tips

• Fill your stack before heading to the dining area, so one walk covers several orders instead of one.
• Clean tables as soon as guests leave, while you are already in the dining area.
• When the café gets busy, hire staff and check on them from time to time in case one has dozed off.