Anomaly Cafe Upgrades Guide – Best Upgrades and Effects

If you’re trying to make your shifts easier in Anomaly Cafe, the upgrades you pick can have a pretty noticeable impact. Some are focused on making your own tasks faster, while others help with customers, machine minigames, or the amount of money you can earn.

The important part is that not every upgrade is equally useful for every player. Your best choice really depends on what you spend most of your time doing during a shift.

Here’s a breakdown of every current upgrade and what each one is actually good for.

Cooking Speed Boost

Cooking Speed Boost increases the speed at which you prepare food in the kitchen.

This is one of the most straightforward upgrades in the game, especially if you’re usually the player responsible for cooking.

When several customers are waiting for their orders, being able to prepare food faster can help the entire team keep up with demand. You’re spending less time on each cooking task, which gives you more time to handle the next order.

If cooking is your main role, this should be one of the first upgrades you consider.

Best for: Players who spend most of their shift cooking.

Walk Speed Boost

Walk Speed Boost increases your character’s movement speed.

It might not sound particularly exciting, but this is one of those upgrades you’ll notice throughout an entire shift.

Faster movement helps you reach customer tables quicker, travel between the kitchen and other parts of the cafe, and generally spend less time walking from one task to another.

Unlike some of the more specialized upgrades, Walk Speed Boost isn’t tied to a single job. Almost every role can benefit from it.

Best for: Almost every type of player, especially servers and players who move around the cafe frequently.

Hurry Up

Hurry Up affects the customers rather than your character.

The upgrade makes customers move around the cafe faster, allowing them to get through the cafe more quickly.

However, there’s a trade-off. Faster customers also mean you may need to keep up with their movements and orders at a quicker pace.

Because of this, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend making it your first upgrade if you’re still learning how the cafe works. Once you’re comfortable handling customers at the normal speed, though, Hurry Up can become more useful.

Best for: Experienced players who are comfortable keeping up with customer movement.

Cleaning Speed Boost

Cleaning Speed Boost is intended to make cleaning cups and plates faster.

There’s an important catch, though: based on the current information, the upgrade doesn’t appear to be functioning properly right now.

Its intended purpose is to speed up cleaning, but the effect isn’t currently working as expected. That means there’s little reason to prioritize it over an upgrade that is actually providing its advertised benefit.

This could obviously change with a future update. If the developers fix the upgrade, its usefulness could increase considerably for players who spend a lot of time cleaning.

Best for: Cleaning-focused players once the upgrade is properly fixed.

Current status: Not working as intended.

Machine Finesse

Machine Finesse is designed specifically for the machine minigames.

It increases the size of the hitboxes during these minigames, giving you a larger window to successfully complete the interactions.

If you regularly miss the timing or struggle with the machine minigames, this can make them considerably more forgiving.

It’s not as universally useful as Walk Speed Boost since its effect is limited to a specific part of the gameplay. But if machines are where you’re constantly making mistakes, this upgrade can be worth picking up.

Best for: Players who struggle with machine minigames.

Better Quality

Better Quality focuses on your earnings.

Rather than making you move or work faster, this upgrade increases the amount of money you earn from certain items.

That makes it a good option for players whose main goal is building up their income over time.

Its value becomes more noticeable when you’re already handling orders efficiently. If you’re constantly losing time on basic tasks, improving your movement or cooking speed may provide a more immediate benefit. But once your workflow is solid, an upgrade that increases your earnings can become much more attractive.

Best for: Players who want to maximize their income.

Best Anomaly Cafe Upgrades

There isn’t one upgrade that is automatically the best for everyone. Your role makes a big difference.

Here’s a simple way to decide:

Best Overall: Walk Speed Boost

If you’re unsure what to buy, Walk Speed Boost is probably the safest all-around option.

Movement is involved in practically everything you do. Whether you’re serving customers, cooking, checking different areas, or simply moving between tasks, getting around faster saves time.

Best for Cooks: Cooking Speed Boost

If you’re almost always working in the kitchen, Cooking Speed Boost makes much more sense.

There’s little point investing in a general upgrade when you can directly improve the task you’re performing throughout most of the shift.

Best for Money: Better Quality

Want to focus on earning? Better Quality is the upgrade to look at.

It’s particularly useful once you’ve become efficient at handling orders and aren’t constantly losing time on basic tasks.

Best for Machine Minigames: Machine Finesse

If those machine minigames are constantly causing problems, Machine Finesse can make them much easier to handle thanks to the larger hitboxes.

What About Hurry Up?

Hurry Up is more of a convenience upgrade for players who already have a good handle on the cafe.

Making customers move faster can help keep things flowing, but it also means you’ll have to react faster. I’d put this below the more universally useful upgrades for newer players.

Should You Buy Cleaning Speed Boost?

For now, I’d hold off if you have better options available.

The upgrade is supposed to make cleaning faster, but its effect doesn’t currently appear to be working properly. Until that changes, your resources are better spent elsewhere.