Cafe Master Story

Genre: Management Simulation

Players: 1

.

Review:

Without a doubt the most prolific developer and publisher of Management Simulation games on Nintendo Switch is Kairosoft, who specializes in games with a retro-style isometric pixel art style, often with the word “Story” in the title. As of this writing, Kairosoft has released 61 games on Nintendo Switch, most of them Management Simulations.

After their earlier games, Kairosoft had established a few templates for their Simulation games that later games would largely follow. Game Dev Story established a Simulation-style game more focused on managing employee time and focus, Hot Springs Story established a Simulation style in line with Theme Park Simulators where you try to cater to guests’ tastes to maximize attendance and income, and Epic Astro Story established a Simulation style akin to games like Sim City, where you’re building out a town or settlement.

Cafe Master Story originally released on PC, mobile devices, and Nintendo Switch in 2023, then saw a port to PlayStation 4 in 2024, then to Xbox One in 2025. This game combines elements of both the Hot Springs Story and Game Dev Story formulas – you are running a coffee shop, and must both manage the arrangement of furniture and facilities inside your shop and come up with new menu item recipes to entice customers.

As with most Kairosoft games, it’s a fairly simplistic take on the Management Simulation genre, but here it’s quite satisfying, with players trying to create the ideal setting in their restaurant, hire and train up staff, and also combine ingredients to come up with popular new drinks and food items. These are gameplay elements that Kairosoft has combined before, such as in Burger Bistro Story, but I think it’s much more well-executed here – you have a decent amount of control over placement in your coffee shop, and some decent options when it comes to choosing how to build up your business, whether that is through investing in improving your staff and facilities, outreach to customers, or working to improve your menu.

When it comes to complaints, I suppose my main complaint is that options are somewhat slowly parceled out to players as they progress through the game, and this does mean that at time you’ll be waiting for things to happen. And as is often the case with Kairosoft games, sometimes it isn’t quite clear how to go about doing things, or if they’re even possible, such as expanding your business.

As I mentioned above, this game makes use of Kairosoft’s signature presentation style using simple retro-styled pixel art visuals, paired with synthesized music and sound effects. I should note that while the music is pretty repetitive, it is also surprisingly catchy, and I imagine players will either love it or hate it. Apart from the music, everything about this presentation is really endearing, though by this point we’ve seen more or less the same thing in numerous other Kairosoft games.

Overall, I really liked Cafe Master Story, and this is one of my favorite restaurant Management Simulations that Kairosoft has yet produced. It’s not without its problems, and I feel like the pacing could use some work, but overall I think that fans of the genre looking for a game where they manage a coffee shop might find this to be worth a look.

tl;dr – Cafe Master Story is a Management Simulation where players manage a coffee shop, guiding its growth and trying different ingredient combinations to find successful new menu items. This game has its issues, such as pacing problems and Kairosoft’s usual issues. But overall, I found this to be a charming restaurant Management Simulation game, well worth playing.

Grade: B

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}