Serving Up Comfort Food to the Capybaras of Café Baras
Set up a bustling local spot with all the right decor, comfort food, and hot tea and coffee for capybaras to enjoy in Café Baras.
In the mood for something bright and warm, I realized it had been a long time since I brought Café Baras to my solo table! This is all about making choices and serving customers selections of tea, coffee, smoothies, treats, soups, sandwiches, and more. Such a wonderful theme! And it’s very hard not to smile at all of the capybara special guests. Time to open this café!
Game Overview
Game Name: Café Baras
Publication Year: 2024
Designer: Roberta Taylor
Artist: Cindy Monroy
Publisher: KTBG
Solo Mode: Unofficial Solo Mode
Special guests offer bonuses to keep in mind as cards are chosen and paid for to outfit a little shop. Food and drinks are the main course, naturally, helping to bring in customers and greet some regular fans! Other items add to the decor, all in a fairly quick play time that’s sure to be a nice time!
First Play
June 19, 2025
Complexity
2
Latest Play
September 26, 2026
Expansions
0
Setup Time
Almost None
Lifetime Plays
6
Play Time
20 Minutes
High Score
79
Game Area
24" x 16"
Low Score
51
Fantastic Artwork
The illustrations and overall setting are simply perfect in this one. Just adorable and so welcoming! It’s all about running a café and choosing how to build it up.
Cards are multi-purpose with the top portion associated with purchasing it. The bottom represents a customer, which is the main way to earn coins to buy some more.
This often leads to situations where a card would be great for both uses, but only one can be chosen. Tricky.
I enjoyed returning to this one, although I quickly felt like I had seen everything before and the challenge was minimal.
Sipster’s Caffeinery
A random card sets the stage for a budding café during setup, granting a small bonus for one category.
The greatest part of this, though, is the name! There are delightful puns that only show up on a handful of cards, but help nurture the lovely atmosphere of the game.
Only some of the cards are used with the solo mode, which I thought would add lots of variety, yet there are a lot of duplicates. These work together, but they appear often.
Serving up regular customers wasn’t too difficult towards the mid-point, and I managed an excellent final score!
Bean There Done That
I reshuffled and reset to play again since there wasn’t that much involved with the process. My café was called Bean There Done That this time, which was another great pun!
However, I felt like it described my experience. This is a lovely little game that offers a fun time for a handful of plays, but the only thing drawing me back in was the art.
There are no difficulty levels, nor additional ways to add to the challenge. I felt like I solved it, and didn’t need to keep it.
I’m sure that can be said about many games, yet I don’t know when I would choose to play this over another game.
Comfort Food
Perhaps it’s not explicitly an autumn-themed game, but I felt like it served up some thematic food! Comfort food, actually. Just looking at the illustrations makes me hungry.
It was a pleasant enough time matching icons and choosing how to focus my efforts. Most of the special guests were very pleased, and I welcomed the majority of them!
There’s a lot to enjoy about comfort food, as well as comfort games. This one might be the right fit for the right player.
My time with it may have lasted just a few plays, but I had a nice time and will always look back on it fondly!
Holding Onto the Little Gaming Memories
I often talk about parting ways with some games and moving them along. That’s often precipitated by a final play session and a noticeable dip in my rating. Spoiler: My rating system is as flawed as can be, but it’s meaningful to me at a glance. I got to thinking about this as I played for the last time. Although the number is lower, I still associate this one with joy.
There are some solo games I part ways with due to not liking them at all, but it’s a different story with something like this. It was never a bad experience: Merely one I saw all of pretty quickly. That’s another reason why I always say the numbers don’t tell the whole story. And maybe that’s the lesson. Every game I’ve played has my own personal story attached to it.
Session Overview
Play Number: 5 & 6
Solo Mode: Unofficial Solo Mode
Outcome: 73, 55 (1 Win & 1 Loss)
Managing the deck was the key to victory, and when I tried something entirely different, it didn’t work out. At least the capybaras were happy! There appears to be a main way to play to win, though, and I think I figured it out. A few minor issues with telling apart some of the icons were enough to tell me I was in danger of exiting this cozy setting. That’s what I hope to achieve with games I move on: To leave them on a positive note, so I can hold onto the good memories.
%
1 Play
Affordability
Price & Value
8
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
9
Originality
Design & Theme
6
Quality
Components & Rules
9
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
4
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
4
+ Pros (Positives)
- A warm and comfortable atmosphere permeates gameplay so that setting up the game offers a happy moment.
- The artwork is amazing, capturing a laid back place full of delicious food and drinks to pause and enjoy.
- Multi-purpose cards offer interesting choices around buying additions or choosing to serve customers for coins.
- Special guests provide overall goals to achieve so card choices have a little more guidance for final scoring.
- Gameplay moves quickly and has a very limited amount of downtime, often simply related to refilling the market.
- Choosing to focus on food, drinks, decor, or a combination offers some fun decisions that come with cute art.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Most of the iconography is very clear, but it can sometimes be easy to mix up coffee and smoothies at a quick glance.
- There is a singular arc to gameplay and very few strategies to pursue, so the experience can get repetitive.
- Many cards are duplicated in the deck, which works, yet means that the same general assortment is available.
- Stacking cards in the play area hides the lovely artwork, but is required so as not to take up a ton of table space.
Victory Conditions
Score 70+ Points & Attract All Special Guests
- Overall Goal Progress 67%
Goals and Milestones
Attract all 5 special guests in at least 1 game.
Score at least 70 points.
Score at least 80 points.
Continue the Conversation
Have you played Café Baras? Is there a card you enjoy the most? This one looks absolutely adorable and cozy, and often feels that way. Although it didn’t hold up for very long in my collection, it was still worth playing for those few wonderful moments. Sometimes, that’s all I can ask of a game! My only other ask is for a Calico Critters capybara family… Ha ha!
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