Vacation Cafe Simulator Review: No Stress, Just Dolce Far Niente

Where do you want to be this Summer? If the answer is a quaint coastal town in Italy, sipping wine with the sun on your face and the sea breeze in your hair, then Alice Games has built the perfect escape for you.

It’s called Vacation Cafe Simulator, and despite the name, it’s less about the hustle of running a restaurant and more about embracing dolce far niente—the sweetness of doing nothing. Set in a stunningly beautiful Italian seaside locale, this is a game that hands you the keys to a cafe. Don’t let the “management sim” label fool you. This isn’t about profit-maxing, efficiency spreadsheets, or angry customers tapping their feet. This is a vacation that happens to have a cafe attached to it.

The game runs on a no-fail state. Customers don’t get upset. Dishes don’t burn. You can literally close up shop at any moment, hop on your scooter, and go fishing—or just sit on a bench eating gelato. There’s zero pressure to even open the cafe on a day you’d rather explore. So how does a restaurant simulator work when there are no stakes? Let’s dig in.

Dolce Far Niente

The sun is warm, the schedule is empty, and the biggest decision you have to make is whether to have the gelato now or after that glass of wine. It is the concept of dolce far niente—the sweetness of doing nothing. This is the exact vibe of Vacation Cafe Simulator. But how exactly can you blend this feeling with a restaurant simulator, you may ask? Well, we’re getting to it.

Most restaurant management games encourage profit min-maxing, efficiency and customer happiness in order to do well. And I’m not going to say that isn’t fun; I love a Chef RPG or Good Coffee, Great Coffee type of game, where everything is specifically designed to make money and improve your restaurant on an endless loop. But in this game, you remove the overall timers and stress of that part.

Customers in Vacation Cafe Simulator are on holiday. They’re in no rush. They will wait for you to craft that perfect plate of traditional lasagne without a single complaint. Sometimes even waiting for several days if you forgot them on the second floor of your restaurant like me. Dishes don’t burn if you leave them in the oven too long, and even wine can’t be overpoured into a glass. There’s no way to fail this game.

And best of all, you can close up shop at literally any point and just… walk away. Fancy a fishing trip? Go ahead. Want to ride your scooter around the scenic coast? Andiamo! The game encourages you to take breaks, to eat gelato or have a glass of wine on a bench, which is a revolutionary concept for a management sim

The Art of the Low-Stakes Hustle

The cooking mechanics in Vacation Cafe Simulator are surprisingly tactile and involved. This isn’t just clicking “cook” and watching a timer go down. You are actively involved in the process—kneading and shaping pizza dough, rolling out pasta, and delicately assembling salads, croissants and more.

While the process is deep, the rhythm of cooking is slow and meditative. I didn’t think that having no pressure in a restaurant sim was going to be fun, but I surprisingly locked in, slowly making croissants, espressos and pasta for hours. There is a particular charm in the routine of buying fresh ingredients from the local market (or catching them yourself), prepping the kitchen, and serving your guests.

I do have to note that a couple of the mechanics aren’t as optimised as I think they could be, and others just got a little too tedious to be enjoyable after a while. The process of making lasagne and tiramisu, for example, is a little slow and repetitive. To make both, it involves layering the ingredients. So making the relevant sauces for the lasagne and then layering each layer (I think there might be 5 layers) to make one dish got a little dull. The same with the tiramisu, where you would have to dip and layer six of the savoiardis to make one dessert. But again, this goes back to the philosophy of the game. It isn’t about speed; it’s about the process. Still, I’d like the option to speed some of those parts up. At least the game lets you remove whatever you want from the menu so you don’t have to cook whatever you don’t want.

Expanding Your Slice of Paradise

As you progress, the scope of your cafe expands. You can expand your kitchen, dining area and even open up a second-floor VIP dining area (more about this later). And eventually you’ll be able to open up and manage your own vineyard, bottling your own wine to serve with your meals. This is a whole other mechanic for you to enjoy. Grow your own grapes, squish them old school with your feet and bottle it up to serve your own ‘House Wine’ vintages.

All parts of your cafe and even your vineyard can be decorated and set up however you like. I’d have to say though that the variety of these decorations isn’t as varied as I would’ve liked. There are a lot of paintings you can put up in your restaurant as well as some plants, but the types of furniture and wallpaper, etc. feel rather limited.

And this is probably one of the bigger issues I have with the game: the last expansion – the second-floor VIP area is actually a fairly uncohesive part of the game, in my opinion. By the later stages of the game, you’ll be able to expand to the second floor, but in order for you to check on those customers, you have to go up through the backstairs and then memorise their orders to get them. If you have four tables up there as I do, it becomes pretty difficult to remember who wants what. Most of the time I completely forget we have customers up there as well. The game does have an order board, but it seems like it’s only for deliveries, and it would be easier if customer orders were on there as well.

The game has a no-fail state, so there’s no real consequence for forgetting customers, but it’s still a little annoying when I have to run up and down because I forgot Table 10 wanted a Glass of Prosecco with her Dorado.

Benvenuti in Italia

One of the most impressive aspects is how Alice Games has leaned into the Italian identity. The voice acting is all in Italian, creating an authentic soundscape. Quests and shopkeepers all speak to you in Italian (with English subtitles), and it really immerses you in the landscape. The soundtrack is also a lovely compilation of Italian tunes that range from classic to more contemporary.

In Vacation Cafe Simulator, you’re encouraged to explore the area that you’re in. Quests are randomly sprinkled around the town for you to find and complete, deliveries are located all over the nearby area, and ingredients are spread out as well. Sometimes when I’m rushing to deliver an order and have to climb up three flights of stairs, I get annoyed, but then I remember there’s no rush, and I should enjoy the walk and leaving the restaurant for a bit.

I wouldn’t say that the game is chock-full of 40 hours of content, but there’s enough diversity in the places you can explore and the menu items that you’ll be kept entertained for hours. Spend the day diving for oysters or cast a line to catch your own fish for the day’s special.