Meadgard how to keep customers happy comes down to four jobs that pull against each other: seat them, serve what they ordered, entertain them, and clean up after them. The patience bar floating over each customer's head is the whole game — it shrinks while you work on somebody else, and when it empties they grab an axe and take a swing at you.

Meadgard how to keep customers happy: the four jobs

  1. Seat them. Customers wait at the entrance and will not sit down on their own. You physically drag them to a chair, and if you walk past somebody at the door they turn enraged. The demo tavern starts with two tables of three seats each, so seating is the first bottleneck you hit, and extra chairs are a purchase rather than a given.
  2. Serve the order. Once a customer is seated, an order icon appears over their head with a patience bar under it: a plate for food, a frothy mug for a drink, a bottle for a brewed drink. A beer takes three steps — grab an empty mug, fill it at the dispenser, deliver it to the waiting customer.
  3. Entertain them. Grab the lute, strum for a moment and collect the payment. The lute throws out an aura that keeps the room from turning on you, which is the cheapest way to stop a brawl before it starts.
  4. Clean up. Customers throw their tankards wherever they like and somebody has to fetch them. Drinks get spilled and food burns if it sits too long.

While those jobs run, somebody also has to watch the money on the floor: the coins customers throw down when you serve them are exactly what the goblins are after, and the coin goblin guide covers that side of the shift.

Order icons and what they mean

The icon over a guest's head is the order, and the bar under it is how long you have:

  • A plate is food. You cook it at the matching station and carry it over — the meal system guide has the step-by-step from crate to plate.
  • A frothy mug is a drink, poured from the barrel behind the counter in three steps.
  • A bottle is a brewed drink — a potion. The potions guide covers what they are and where they come from.

Orders pile up, and the demo's own list of night-time mayhem runs "spilled drinks, burnt food, brawls breaking out, orders piling up". Any one of those takes the room away from you.

Guests in the Meadgard tavern with their orders overhead: a plate of food and a frothy beer mug on green order icons with patience bars beneath them, and the shift timer reading 02:43 at the top of the screen.
Order icons and patience bars over seated guests during a night shift.

The patience bar and the clock

Two timers are running at once. The patience bar is per customer: leave one waiting too long and they start attacking you, axe and all. The shift countdown is global, shown at the top of the screen — the demo tavern shows 02:43 with the shift timer — and the service ends when it hits zero, with very little ceremony. Plan the back half of the shift by the guests still standing, not by the ones already seated.

When the room gets away from you

Some pressure is fixed and some is bought off. You cannot buy a bigger room early, but you can buy the things that buy you minutes: more tankards, and an additional dispenser so one player is not permanently refilling the barrel. The full list of what a shift of takings can be spent on is in the tavern upgrades guide.