How to order food in German
Customers in Café Berlin order the way people really order in German cafés. You will see these sentence patterns again and again, so after a few shifts you can use them yourself:
Ich hätte gern einen Kaffee.
I'd like a coffee.
Ich möchte eine Cola.
I would like a cola.
Ich nehme ein Croissant.
I'll have a croissant.
Für mich eine Suppe, bitte.
For me, a soup, please.
Kann ich einen Tee haben?
Can I have a tea?
Zweimal Kaffee, bitte.
Two coffees, please.
Ich hätte gern and Ich möchte are the most polite. Zweimal Kaffee (two times coffee) is café shorthand: you count with -mal and drop the article.
Why it is einen Kaffee but eine Cola
When you order something, it is the object of the sentence, so it takes the accusative case. Only masculine nouns change: der Kaffee becomes einen Kaffee. Feminine and neuter nouns stay the same: eine Cola, ein Wasser.
This is why the article of each word matters. If you know that Saft (juice) is masculine, you know to say einen Saft. After every customer, the game shows the order again with the article highlighted. The guide to the German cases explains the accusative in more detail.
Plurals in orders are not always the dictionary plural. Drinks often keep the singular form: zwei Kaffee, drei Wasser. Food usually takes the normal plural: zwei Brezeln, drei Waffeln.
Saying prices in German
After you serve a customer, you tell them the total. Germans say the euros first, then the cents, with no und in between: 7,40 € is sieben Euro vierzig, and 2,05 € is zwei Euro fünf. Note that German uses a comma where English uses a decimal point.
In the first rounds you pick the right price from four options. Later you build it yourself from number words. Watch out for ein Euro: many learners say eins Euro, and the game includes eins as a trap. Our guide to German numbers covers the number words you need.
Customers who change their minds
As the shift gets busier, orders get harder. Customers order for other people (für meine Tochter, for my daughter), add something at the end (und noch, and also), change a number (ach nein, drei!, oh no, three!), or cancel an item (doch keinen Kaffee, no coffee after all). These are the kinds of sentences you hear at a real counter, and you have to read to the end before you fill the tray.
All the food and drinks in the game come from our restaurant and café vocabulary list. For more words for meals and ingredients, see food and drinks in German.
