Welcome to Rosters Co.

Rosters Co. is a persistent multiplayer game. That means the world keeps moving whether you’re logged in or not. Your cafe serves customers around the clock: through the morning rush, the slow afternoon, and the late-night crowd. When you come back, something happened.

The basics

You start with $400,000 and one decision: where to open your first cafe. Each city has a different cost of living, different foot traffic, and different competition. A lot in Mexico City is cheaper to run than one in New York, but New York rewards you more if you get it right.

Once you pick a location, you’ll set up your cafe. Choose your equipment, your roaster, your look. These decisions matter. A better espresso machine produces better coffee. A coherent interior and exterior earns a higher atmosphere score. There’s no single right answer, but there are wrong ones.

Stars

Your cafe’s star rating determines how many customers walk through the door. It’s calculated from four things: the quality of your product, whether your prices feel fair, how well your staff performs, and the atmosphere you’ve built. Stars change slowly. Building a 4-star cafe takes time and good decisions. Losing stars is faster: neglect your staff or run out of supplies and you’ll feel it.

Supplies

Supplies are the heartbeat of your operation. Every drink and food item consumes ingredients. They expire in 3 days. If you run out of everything, your cafe closes, and costs keep running while it does. Checking your stock is the most important part of your daily routine.

You can change your roaster and blend at any time from the Supplies tab. A “Change roaster” button opens a modal showing all three roasters and their nine blends, each with quality stars and price tier. Changing is free. The new blend takes effect on your next supply purchase - your existing stock is not affected.

While you were away

Every time you open the app, you’ll see a summary of what happened since your last visit: how much you earned, how many customers you served, and whether anything went wrong. It’s the first thing you see for a reason. A lot can happen in a few hours.

The market

Every player buys from the same ingredient market. When demand for a product is high, prices rise. When nobody’s buying, they fall. This is a shared economy: your decisions affect everyone, and theirs affect you. Checking the World tab before buying supplies is worth the extra few seconds.

Your wealth

The Wealth tab on the dashboard tracks your total net worth: cash balance, plus the original purchase price of every lot you own, plus the cost of every completed development project. A line chart shows how your wealth has changed over the last 7, 30, or 90 days. This is the number that matters most over time. Revenue is noise. Wealth is signal.

Other players

You share the world with everyone else playing Rosters Co. Lots are finite: if another player buys one, it’s gone until they sell it or lose it. In the city view you can see other players’ cafes, their star rating, and what they’re serving. Prices are private. Strategy is yours.

Growing

There’s no pressure to expand. A single well-run cafe in a Mid zone can be profitable and satisfying for as long as you want. But if you do want more: more cities, more locations, more complexity, the tools are there.

Development projects unlock new menu items, marketing campaigns, and operational upgrades for your entire chain. You invest once from the Dashboard and the unlock applies to all your cafes. Each individual cafe then activates the new items independently from its own Product tab. One project at a time across your whole operation.

You can also invest in marketing campaigns, hire a branch manager to cover you when you’re away, and eventually open in new cities.

Renovating

From the Service tab, you can renovate any cafe. This lets you change the exterior style or tier, interior style or tier, espresso machine tier, brewer tier, or blender tier. The cost is the full price of the new tier for each category you change. Style-only changes within the same tier are also charged at the tier price. The total is shown before you confirm.

When you confirm a renovation, the cost is deducted and the cafe closes for 24 hours. The cron job reopens it automatically when the window passes. Star ratings recalculate on the next hourly cycle.

Closing a cafe

If you want to walk away from a location, a “Close permanently” link in the cafe header opens a confirmation modal. On confirm, you receive 50% of the original lot purchase price as a refund, the lot returns to the market, and the cafe is deleted. This cannot be undone.

Supporter

Rosters Co. is free to play. If you enjoy it and want to support its development, the Supporter subscription gives you a badge visible to other players, the ability to buy supplies for all your cafes in one action, and protection from the 30-day inactivity deletion. No pay-to-win mechanics: everything that affects your star rating or revenue is available to everyone.

A note from the developer

Rosters Co. is a one-person project. I built it because I genuinely love persistent business games and coffee, and I wanted something that combined both in a way that respects your time and intelligence.

If you’re here, thank you. Seriously. Sharing the game with a friend, leaving feedback, or becoming a Supporter makes a real difference and keeps the lights on.

If you have ideas, suggestions, or something broke: write to rostersco@gmail.com. I read every message and will do my best to implement what makes sense.