In a nut shell, you build a meadow to grow goods (and a manufactory to process some of those goods further) along with other farm goods to prepare recipes in the cafe.
Each prepared recipe gives "customer satisfaction" (separate from game happiness) and money. There are 6 thresholds or stages that give you special rewards for customer satisfaction - keys, cash or mallets - that can be viewed on the second tab.
The cafe and meadow becomes available at level 40 and factory becomes available at level 44. Additional recipes become available as your player level increases. The thresholds for customer satisfaction rewards goes up each 10 player levels (up to player level 90), then doesn't change anymore. (The exception is level 70's increase happens at 67 post honey update.)
Recipe levels are upgraded by preparing them a certain number of times, but capped by the cafe level. (You can upgrade your recipes to level 3 in a level 3 cafe.) Levels 6+ are still locked.
There are 5 types of customers - Elderly, Managers, Children, Athletes and Tourists. Each customer has 3 recipes - one that requires only a meadow to produce and gives low satisfaction per recipe, one that requires a factory and gives medium satisfaction per recipe, and one that requires honey and gives high satisfaction. Each day there is a daily customer that receives double the customer satisfaction. These are indicated with a blue up arrow in a star in the upper left corner of the recipe. ALWAYS focus on your daily customer; they take half the recipes. You can see tomorrow's customer on the second tab beside the "customer satisfaction" meter.
So far, no one has found a repeatable customer pattern, but they do seem to focus on one group 3 out of 5 days and then switch.
Tips
Go for the 1st (most efficient), 2nd (if you want keys), 4th (max money) or 6th (keys/mallets) rewards. If you can't make the next one, stop and stock pile for the next day.
Weigh the costs... lasagna takes less meadow time and no factory time compared to sweet scented oil.
Think of your meadow in averages. For example, olives over night, either citrus or lavender x2 while at work, cocoa over supper, then smaller crops till bed rather then aloe all day if you are away from your farm for hours.
Farmer John
Farmer John likes to get up in the morning and spend 15 mins on his farm while drinking coffee. He checks it for 5 mins before heading out the door to work and again at lunch. His kids will give him 10 mins to look at his farm when he gets home, and he sneaks a peak at 7 before tucking them in. At 9 he settles down in his favorite chair to enjoy farming and his co-op before heading to bed at 10:30. He runs his market till he can't fill contracts each time he gets on his farm – 9 times per day.
He is level 44 (happiness is 61), and debating if he should add a meadow and manufactory. If he takes 15 workers and 90 units of land and builds a level 4 goat and level 5 apple, he will generate $104k* per day, an additional 5700 market points per day and be a little short on fertilizer. I have not calculated the additional materials from contracts. This combination also generates 187 team tourney points per day from projects (apples and cheese contributions.)
If he puts in a level 1 meadow and a level 1 factory instead, with level 2 recipes, he can generate $90k average per day. His meadow will run 12hrs per day (25% humus used on 1hr+ crops) and the factory 6hrs per day. The extra capacity can be used to grab additional keys 3 out of 5 days, or make citrus oil for 1/2 a sushi (10 mallet average.) I will refer to it as 'sushi oil'.
When he gets to level 60, his recipes have improved to level 4, and his meadow is now level 3. His meadow runs 15 hrs per day and the factory 10hrs. The extra production gets the keys every 2 days out of 5, or 1/2 of a sushi oil per day. Upping the meadow to level 4 saves an hour; upping the factory will shave off 20 mins per day. He makes an average of $256k per day with this setup.
By level 90, his meadow is level 7 and recipes are level 2 for the honey ones and 5 for the other. His meadow runs 13hrs per day, factory 11 hrs and he uses 101 honey per day to generate $544k, 15 mallets and 21 keys. The extra meadow and factory time can be used for 1 sushi oil per day or cutting down on honey needed.
If he took the 12 workers used on the meadow upgrades and upgraded 2 goats from level 3 to 6, and his 3 apples from 5 to 7, he would generate $139k*, and an extra 107 team tourney points. Unfortunately, he doesn't play enough to move all his apples through the market to see the true cash and points potential.
Notice that he never 'needs' to upgraded his factory to level 2...
*The limiting factor on John's farm is how many times he runs his market in a day. If he could do it more often, his apple profits would be $129k at level 40 and $205k at level 90. But, if he marketed more, he would play more, and that would completely change these numbers...
For John, I would recommend adding a meadow and factory the first expansion after level 50.
Farmer Donna
Farmer Donna on the other hand, has an identical farm, but rises a tad earlier, checks her farm during breaks at work and both ends of lunch, sneaks a peak while making supper and plays a little later into the night. Her goat and apple combination brings in $162k and 8100 market points at level 40. Her cafe would give the same numbers, except she can use excess meadow and factory capacity to generate twice the sushi oil. I think she should wait till level 58 to start her cafe.
Everything is completely dependent on how much you play and what you goals are, but I hope this gives you some feel for how the cafe and meadow work and you can make informed and wise decisions.
Happy Farming! SF
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