In the Business Simulator, you run your own café on Main Street. It sells lattes, drip coffee and croissants. Every day you make a plan: your prices, who works when, and what supplies to order. Then your teacher runs the day for the whole class, and you get to watch every customer come in, buy something or walk out. Your goal is to finish with a profit and a strong customer rating.
Getting to your café
Click Simulators in the sidebar.
Open the Business band and click Start Business (or Continue Business if you've already started).
If your teacher assigned it, you can also open it from your Assignments page.
If you see No café yet, your teacher hasn't started the simulator for your class. Your café shows up on its own when they do. If your class is already playing and you still see this, ask your teacher to add you.
How a day works
Plan. You set up your café for the next day on the Plan and Stock tabs, then save your plan.
Your teacher runs the day. Everyone's café opens at the same time. You can't run days yourself or skip ahead.
Watch. Your screen updates on its own. A yellow strip says the day is done, and the Street tab gets a NEW badge. Click Watch day 1 to see the replay.
Read the books. The Books tab shows what you sold, what it cost and where your cash went. Use what you learn to plan the next day.
The bar across the top always shows your cash, which day it is, your café's name, the weather forecast for the day you're planning, and your star rating. Every café starts with $1,500 in cash and a 4.0 star rating.
Your first day
On day one you'll see a welcome message with your café's name. Two choices belong to your first day only:
Floor plan. Pick Compact (room for 2 staff, everything within reach), Classic (3 staff, a little walking) or Long bar (4 staff, the longest walk between stations). You keep this for the whole game, so think about how many people you'll want working at your busiest time.
Starter loan. You can borrow up to $2,000 to get going. It's charged interest every day until you pay it back, so only borrow what you need.
The Plan tab
Menu and prices
For each item you'll see the Supplies cost (what the ingredients for one sale cost you), Your price, and Profit each. Use the minus and plus buttons to change a price, or type it in. Uncheck On the menu to stop selling something. After day one, you'll also see how many you sold yesterday at what price.
Every customer has a top price they'll pay. Price too high and they walk out. Price too low and you might not cover your costs. How many people will come stays a surprise until the day runs.
Staff schedule
Set the Wage for everyone (it can't go below the minimum wage), then tap or click squares in the grid to give each barista hours. Your café is open whenever at least one person is working. After the first day, the bottom row shows how many customers came each hour. Red means some gave up waiting. Gray shows people who walked past while you were closed, which is a hint that you might want to open earlier or stay open later.
Marketing and money
Buy Flyers (they last 3 days) or a Social media ad (lasts 1 day) to bring in more people. If you have a loan, Pay back lets you repay some of it from your cash.
Known costs
The last panel adds up rent, utilities, staff wages and anything else you're paying for the day under Before your first sale. It also tells you how many lattes or drip coffees you'd need to sell to cover that. That's your break-even point.
The Stock tab
Your four supplies are Coffee beans, Milk, Cups and Croissants. For each one you'll see what's on hand, what's on the way, and about how long it will last at yesterday's pace. Tags say OK, Running low or Out.
Extra order buys more for this plan only.
Restock to sets a level the café tops up to automatically every morning. Set it to 0 for no automatic orders.
Watch the small print under each supply. Croissants only keep the day they arrive, so leftovers are thrown out. Milk keeps a few days. Coffee beans take two days to arrive and come in big orders. Deliveries are paid when they arrive, and the bottom of the tab warns you if an order costs more than the cash you have.
Saving your plan
Plan and Stock share one save button at the bottom: Save plan for day 2 (it always names the day). When it works, you'll see "Plan saved for day 2". Undo changes takes you back to what you last saved.
If something in your plan isn't allowed, you'll see "The plan wasn't saved. Fix these and save again:" with a list of what to fix. If you don't save anything, your café runs on its last saved choices.
Important: only saved plans count. If your teacher runs the day while you still have unsaved changes, those changes aren't used.
The Street tab: watching your day
The replay shows your café from opening to closing. Use 1x, 4x or 16x to change the speed, the pause button to stop, and the Time of day slider to jump around. Skip to results takes you to the Books tab.
Click anyone on the street, or step through them with the arrow buttons, to see their story: what they Wanted, what they Would pay, Your price, how much Patience they had, and how long they Waited. This is the fastest way to find out why people left. Counters show how many were Served, how many Gave up, and how many are In line.
The Books tab: what happened
Four tiles show Sales, Profit, Cash at close and Customers (served and left).
Sales by hour shows your busy and slow times.
Profit and loss shows your sales, minus what you sold cost you, minus wages, rent and other costs.
Cash flow shows money in and out. If your cash changed by a different amount than your profit, click the "Why?" line to see the reasons.
What you own and owe is your balance sheet.
What happened explains the day in plain words, like which item sold out and when.
Use the day arrows at the top to look back at any earlier day. At the bottom, you can download every day so far with Sales (CSV), Hourly (CSV), Stock (CSV) and Staff hours (CSV), or all of it in one file with All books (Excel).
Events, pauses and running out of cash
Events. Your teacher can add things like a street festival, rain, a price jump for a supply, a minimum wage increase, or a new competitor. Some are announced ahead of time and show in a strip on your Plan and Stock tabs. Others are surprises.
Paused. If your teacher pauses the game, you can look around, but saving is off until they resume.
Out of cash. If your cash drops too low at closing, the bank lends you enough to cover it. It will do this three times. The next time, the bank closes your café and you can't plan any more. If that happens, ask your teacher to start your café over.
When the game ends
After the last day, you'll see a summary called That's a wrap with your Total profit, Final cash, Customers served and Rating. Every replay and every day's books are still there to look back at, and you can still download your books.
Tips
Watch the replay before you change anything. Click a few people who left and compare Would pay with Your price.
Change one or two things a day, not everything. Then you'll know what made the difference.
Check the staff row for when customers actually came. Long lines at busy times mean you need more hands then.
Keep an eye on croissants. Ordering too many means throwing money away every night.
Save early, and save again after any change. Saving more than once is fine.
Common questions
Can I change my café's name?
No. Names are given out automatically when your teacher starts the game.
I missed a day. Is my café closed?
No. Your café still opened and ran on your last saved plan. You can watch every day you missed on the Street tab.
Why didn't my changes count?
The day probably ran before you saved. You'll see a message saying so, and your plan for the next day starts from what you had saved. Save as soon as you're happy with your plan.
It says "Reconnecting…". Did I lose my work?
No. Your changes are still on the screen. Wait for the message to go away, then save.
The Business Simulator won't open for me.
If you see a message that it isn't included for your class, it hasn't been set up for you. Let your teacher know.