HandyCafe Blog
Practical guides for running an internet cafe or gaming center: how each part of HandyCafe works and when to reach for it.
These articles are not available in your language yet, so we are showing the English ones.
Cafeteria
How do I sell food and drinks at the seat in my gaming cafe?
A thirsty customer who has to pause the game and walk to the counter often just does not bother. That is money you never see. Here is how table-side ordering turns it into a sale instead.
Operations
Why is my cash drawer short: theft or honest mistakes?
A drawer that comes up short at midnight tells you nothing on its own. It could be a skimmed note or an honest miscount. The only way to know is to make every shift answer for itself.
Members
How do I get customers to come back to my cafe?
A first-timer who has a good night still forgets you by next week unless you give them a reason not to. Points, tiers and prepaid credit are that reason. They work because the discount is automatic.
Setup
Can I run my internet cafe on Linux?
The software runs on Linux x64, server and client both. That is the easy half of the answer. The half worth reading is what changes on the floor: the games and how much thinner your tamper protection gets.
Mobile apps
Two apps: one for you, one for your customers
HandyCafe has two mobile apps and they do completely different jobs. One puts your cafe in your pocket. The other puts your customers' accounts in theirs. Here is what each actually does, including what the owner app deliberately will not do.
Setup
Can I run my game shop or esports cafe from a Mac?
Short answer: yes, if it is an Apple Silicon Mac. Here is what actually runs where, the one Mac that is not supported and why the counter machine matters far less than people think.
Game accounts
How do I share Steam and Epic accounts across my cafe PCs?
You cannot buy every game for every machine. You share a handful of launcher accounts. Then two customers open the same game and the launcher throws one of them out mid-match. Here is how an account pool fixes that.
Billing
How much should you charge per hour in an internet cafe?
Everybody wants the number. There is not one. A rate that prints money in one city closes a cafe in another. Here is how to work out your number instead of copying somebody else's.
Industry
What is eSports?
A plain explanation of competitive gaming: what makes it a sport rather than just playing, who is involved, which games count and why the room you play in still matters.
Choosing software
How to choose internet cafe software in 2026
Every vendor's feature list looks the same. The list is not what decides it. Here is what actually matters when you pick the software that runs your floor, from someone who has built it for two decades.
Industry
Is the internet cafe business worth it in 2026?
The honest answer depends entirely on what you think you are selling. The business that sold internet access is finished. The one that sells a room, machines people cannot afford at home and other people to play with is doing fine.
Starting a cafe
Advice for opening a PlayStation cafe
A PlayStation cafe is not a small internet cafe. Different room, different crowd, different economics. Here is what actually matters when you open one and the counter tool built for consoles rather than gaming PCs.
Billing
How do I track hourly usage in a billiards, PlayStation or game hall?
In a table and console venue the money leaks quietly: a few untracked minutes and a forgotten drink at a time, every table, every night. Here is what proper time tracking looks like and the tool built for it.
Billing
Pricing that fits how your cafe actually runs
Flat hourly rates leave money on the table on a Saturday night and scare people off on a slow Tuesday. Here is how HandyCafe charges sessions: prepaid or postpaid, rates that move with the clock and different prices for PCs, consoles and members.
Choosing software
Which software should I choose for an eSports venue?
An eSports venue is not just an internet cafe with better chairs. A tournament room puts demands on your software that a basic timer never has to handle. Here is what actually matters when you choose.
Starting a cafe
How to open an internet cafe without the mistakes that sink most of them
Most internet cafes that fail do not fail from bad luck. They fail from decisions made before the doors ever opened. Here is how to open one, in the order the decisions actually matter.
Cloud
The morning a cafe lost everything: why cloud backup exists
A cafe owner called us the day his disk died. Years of members, balances and session history, gone. He asked how to get it back. The honest answer was we could not. Here is the feature that would have made that a ten-minute problem.
Members
Turn walk-ins into regulars with member accounts and QR login
An anonymous walk-in pays once and you never see the money again. A member has a balance, a history and a reason to come back. Here is how HandyCafe member accounts, prepaid wallets and QR login work and why they change who fills your seats.
Remote management
Remote Management: run every computer in your cafe from one screen
See any station live, take over the mouse and keyboard, add time, send a message or shut a machine down without leaving the counter. Here is how HandyCafe Remote Management works and when you actually reach for it.
Industry
Why is internet cafe software no longer free?
For twenty years the cafe program was free because ads on the screens paid for it. That deal is ending and the reason is not greed. It is that the internet cannot count the people sitting in an internet cafe.