Yatai Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Components
• Chapter 2: Game Setup
• Chapter 3: Player Setup
• Chapter 4: How to Play
  • A) Customer queue check
  • B) Select 1 Action tile
  • C) Perform the actions
• Chapter 5: Actions
  • New Customers and Tourists
  • Cook Dishes
  • Refill Beverages
  • Recycle Bottles
  • Serve
• Chapter 6: Reputation Board
• Chapter 7: Bonus
  • Menu Improvement
  • Fridge Improvement
  • Stove Improvement
  • Double Customer
  • Influencer
  • Special Action (Taiyaki Sweet, Doggy Bag, Urgent Call and Garbage)
  • Review
• Chapter 8: End of Game & Scoring
• Chapter 9: Ties
• Chapter 10: Quick Rules

Chapter 1: Components

• 4 Yatai boards
• 4 Reputation boards
• 4 menu boards
• 1 action board
• 1 Turn tracker
• 10 Action tiles
• 72 Victory Point tokens
• 16 Special Action tokens: 4 doggy bag, 4 Urgent Call, 4 taiyaki sweet, 4 garbage
• 40 Dish markers: 10 Ramen, 10 Gyoza, 10 Ebi Tempura, 10 Yakitori
• 16 food tokens: 4 Ramen, 4 Gyoza, 4 ebi Tempura, 4 Yakitori
• 8 Improvement tokens: 4 fridge, 4 Stove
• 20 Beverage markers (5 bottles of 4 colors)
• 40 Customer markers (10 Meeple of 4 colors)
• 5 Tourist markers (Gray Meeple)
• 16 Review markers (pink wooden cylinders)
• 4 Influencer markers (purple wooden cylinders)
• 1 End Game marker (wooden Lantern)
• 1 Action Indicator marker (wooden Cat)
• 1 first-player token
• 1 Cloth bag
• 2 Rulebooks (ITA/ENG)

Chapter 2: Game Setup

Place the Action board in the middle of the common play area. Randomly draw 6 Action tiles and arrange them in a 2x3 grid, face up, on the board. Put the other 4 tiles, face up, next to the board together with the Action Indicator marker. Place the Turn tracker and put the End Game marker on "1".

Refer to the table below to select the components to use based on the number of players (quantity per color, except Special Actions which is the total).

Players	Dishes	Beverages	Clients	Tourists	Special Actions
4	10	5	10	5	12
3	8	4	8	4	9
2	6	3	6	3	6

Take and separate by color the Dishes and the Beverages and put them on the table. Put the Customers and the Tourists in the cloth bag and shuffle. Randomly draw the number of SPECIAL ACTION markers needed and place them, face up, beside the Dishes and Beverages. Finally, create a common reserve with all the Victory Point tokens.

Chapter 3: Player Setup

Each player creates their own play area by placing it in front of them:

• 1 Yatai board
• 1 Reputation board
• 1 Menu board
• 4 different Food tokens (Yakitori, Ebi Tempura, Gyoza, Ramen)

Choose the First Player according to the preferred criterion and assign the first-player token.

Starting from the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player chooses 1 Food token from their play area and places it on a free space on the Menu board, being careful not to choose a Food token already chosen by the previous players.

After everyone has placed the first food token, each player randomly draws another Food token to add it to an empty space on the Menu board. Keep the remaining Food tokens next to your Menu board.

The Dishes corresponding to the 2 tokens on the board are the foods that your Yatai can cook from the beginning of the game. (Example: the player first chose a bowl of Ramen (red) and then drew a plate of Yakitori (blue).)

Then:

• Place the Fridge improvement token on the Yatai board to cover the rightmost Beverage space.
• Choose and place one beverage marker face down in an empty space of the recycle box.
• Place the Stove improvement token on the Yatai board to cover the rightmost space of the dish queue.
• Place 1 Influencer marker on the starting space of the Influencer track.
• Place 4 Review markers in the spaces of the column marked "0" on the Review track. These are the 4 reviews (Service, Atmosphere, Value, Cleanliness) that you can decide to increase during the game (see Chapter 7: Bonus).

Chapter 4: How to Play

Following the order of play, each player must complete the following 3 steps:

• A) Check the Customers queue;
• B) Choose 1 Action tile to be inserted in the 2x3 grid and place the Action Indicator marker;
• C) Perform the activated Actions.

When all players have ended their turn, move the End Game marker one space forward on the Turn Tracker.

At any time, during your turn, you can use the Special Action tokens (see Chapter 7: Bonus). DISCARD the tokens from the game after using them.

A) Customer queue check

If there is 1 Customer or 1 Tourist in the rightmost space of the Customer Queue of your Yatai, you LOSE 2 Reviews of your choice on the Review track. Put the Customer or Tourist back in the cloth bag.

You can avoid this penalty in two ways:

1. offering 1 Beverage to the Customer or Tourist, moving 1 Beverage marker of any color from the Fridge to the Recycle Box and turning it over;
2. offering 1 Taiyaki Sweet token to the Customer or Tourist, using the corresponding Special Action token.

If the Recycle Box is full, you cannot offer the Beverage.

(Customer types: Koureisha - senior citizen, Jugyoin - employee, Yankee - delinquent, Gakusei - student, Kankokyaku - tourist.)

B) Select 1 Action tile

Select 1 Action tile among the 4 available outside the Action board. Choose 1 column or 1 row and place the Action indicator to remember the selected one.

Insert the chosen tile from top to bottom (COLUMNS C1, C2 or C3) or from left to right (ROWS R1 or R2) and push out the last tile from the grid. The removed action tile becomes available for the next player, together with the other 3 outside the grid.

Can't remember in which direction you inserted the tile? Check the leaves at the end of the cherry blossom branch!

C) Perform the actions

Perform the actions of the chosen column or row in your preference order. An action must be completed entirely. If it is not possible to perform it completely, then ignore the action.

Chapter 5: Actions

New Customers and Tourists

Draw 1 or 2 Customers or Tourists from the cloth bag, depending on the Action tile chosen. If you picked a customer you can place it in your yatai customer queue or the one of another player. If you picked a tourist you can place it in your yatai customer queue or you can replace it with a customer from another player's yatai.

Always put the Customers (or the Tourist if you decide to keep it) in the first available space starting from the left.

The action cannot be performed if all the customer queues are full. If you still want to play the 2 chosen actions in the same turn, you must do them in sequence.

Cook Dishes

Depending on the action tile chosen, select 1 or 2 dishes, among those that your Yatai can cook based on the Food tokens on your Menu board (Ramen, Ebi Tempura, Yakitori, Gyoza). Take the Dishes from the common play area and place them in the Dish Queue of your Yatai in the first available space starting from the left.

If your Yatai's dish queue is full, you can't take this action.

Refill Beverages

Choose 1 or 2 Beverages, depending on the Action tile chosen, and place them in your fridge.

If your fridge is full, you can't take this action.

Recycle Bottles

Move 1 Beverage marker from the Recycle Box of your Yatai to the common play area. Get +1 VP.

If your Recycle Box is empty, you can't take this action.

Serve

To do this action, you need to have 1 Customer or 1 Tourist plus 1 Dish in the first spaces on the left of their respective queues, plus 1 or 2 Beverages in the Fridge depending on the action tile chosen. Perform the following in order:

1. Turn over and move the Dish marker to 1 free space in the sink of dirty dishes, or overlap it if there are already any dish markers of the same color;
2. Turn over and move 1 or 2 Beverages from the Fridge to the Recycle Box;
3. Place the Customer or the Tourist in 1 space on the Reputation board (see Chapter 6: Reputation Board) and get the corresponding bonus.
4. Get from 1 to 4 VP as follows:
   • +1 VP for Customer or Tourist served;
   • +1 VP if the Dish has the same color as the Customer;
   • +1 VP for each Beverage of the same color as the Customer's.
5. Move the markers in the Customer queue and the dish queue one space to the left on the counter.

Example: the player gets +3 VP: +1 for the Customer (green); +1 for the gyoza (green), +1 for the beverage (green).

If the Recycle Box is full, you can't play this action.

Chapter 6: Reputation Board

Every time 1 Customer or Tourist is placed on the board you get a bonus, as described in Chapter 7: Bonus.

Place the first Customer or Tourist in any space on the edge of the grid. You can't choose the central spaces highlighted in red when you place the first Customer or Tourist.

Example: the player decides to place his first Customer on a space along the edge of the grid. In this space, the bonus provides for an increase of 1 review of your choice between cleanliness and service. The player decides to increase the service and therefore moves the corresponding indicator on the review track by 1 space to the right.

The victory points indicated at the top of the review track (-1, 0, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5) are awarded only at the end of the game.

Further Customers or Tourists must be placed in a space, horizontal or vertical, adjacent to another Customer or Tourist already present.

It's never allowed to place 1 Customer or Tourist diagonally. The only exception is given by the Special Action Doggy Bag.

Example: the player should place their yellow Customer in a space near another Customer already present, either horizontally or vertically. However, they need to unlock the possibility of cooking another type of food, so they decide to use the Doggy Bag marker, which they obtained earlier, to place the yellow Customer where they prefer.

Chapter 7: Bonus

Menu Improvement

Choose 1 of the food tokens still available and place it on your menu board. From now on, you can cook new food. Get +2 VP at once.

Fridge Improvement

Remove the fridge improvement token from the Yatai board. From now on, the fridge can hold up to 3 Beverages. Get +2 VP at once.

Stove Improvement

Remove the stove improvement token from the Yatai board. From now on, you can queue up to 3 dishes. Get +2 VP at once.

Double Customer

Choose 1 Customer or 1 Tourist from the cloth bag and place it on 1 free space of your reputation board, respecting the placement rules described in Chapter 6: Reputation Board.

Influencer

Move the influencer marker by 1 space upward on the track straight away. Get a number of reviews, selecting the ones you prefer, equivalent to the number of stars on the destination space.

Example: the player places their red Customer on the space with the influencer bonus and moves the influencer marker by 1 space ahead. They can decide to go ahead on the review track by 1 space on 2 different reviews or by 2 spaces on a single review. The player chooses to move by 2 spaces only on the atmosphere review.

Special Action (Taiyaki Sweet, Doggy Bag, Urgent Call and Garbage)

It allows you to choose 1 special action token among those still available in the common play area. The special action token can be used at any time during your turn or kept until the end of the game, and in this case, it provides the VP indicated on the back.

• Taiyaki Sweet (1 VP at game end): It gives you the possibility to ignore the penalty of the Customer queue or to use it as 1 dish for the serve action. Get +1 VP if you serve 1 Taiyaki sweet to a Tourist.
• Doggy Bag (2 VP at game end): After performing the serve action, it allows you to place the Customer or the Tourist on the reward grid without need to respect the placement rules described in Chapter 6: Reputation Board.
• Urgent Call (2 VP at game end): It allows you to exchange the positions of 2 Customers, or 1 Customer and 1 Tourist of your choice, in the queue of your Yatai.
• Garbage (3 VP at game end): It allows you to move all the Beverages from the recycle box to the common play area without getting any VP.

Review

Place 1 Customer or 1 Tourist and advance on the Review track. The Customer makes you move by 1 space ahead, while the Tourist makes you move by 2 spaces. Choose the review among the icons in the space that you have chosen.

The Tourist makes you move by 2 spaces. You can decide to move by 1 space ahead on 2 different reviews or 2 spaces on a single review.

Example: the player places the Tourist on the space with the reviews of cleanliness and value and decides to move by 1 space for each of the 2 different reviews.

Chapter 8: End of Game & Scoring

At the end of turn 12, each player, following the turn order:

• Loses 2 Reviews of their choice if there is 1 Customer or 1 Tourist left in the rightmost space of the Customer Queue, unless they offer them 1 Beverage or 1 Taiyaki sweet;
• Can serve the Customers or Tourists left in their Customer Queue, following the rules, and getting the VP as described in Chapter 5: Actions.

Example: the player has Customers, dishes, and Beverages on the Yatai board and free spaces in the recycle box. They can then: serve the red Customer with the first yellow dish and the red Beverage, getting +2 VP; slide the Tourist and the red dish to the left and repeat the serve action with the last yellow Beverage, getting +1 VP; end their turn and their game, not having any other Customers in the queue.

When all players have completed this last extra turn, proceed with the final scoring:

1. The player who has the highest number of Dirty Dishes on the Yatai Board gets a number of VP equal to the number of Dishes. The count is done separately for each type (color) of Dish and in the case of a tie, no player gets any VP. (Example: the player has the most Ramen (red) dirty dishes in the sink and thus gets +4 VP.)
2. The player who has the highest number of Customers served on the Reputation Board gets a number of VP equal to the number of Customers. The count is done separately for each type (color) of Customer and in case of a tie, no player gets any VP. Tourists are NOT taken into account when calculating the majorities. (Example: the player has the highest number of yellow Customer markers on the bonus grid and thus gets +3 VP.)
3. Each player gets a number of VP, both positive and negative, depending on the position of each marker on the Review track. (Example: the player gets +6 VP divided as follows: +5 for Cleanliness, +2 for Service, -1 for Value.)
4. Each player gets a number of VP equal to those indicated on the back of all the Special Action Tokens not used during the game.

At the end of the scoring, the player with the most VP wins the game.

Chapter 9: Ties

If there is a tie, the victory goes to the player who, in order:

• Has the most Customers and Tourists on the bonus grid;
• Has the least number of bottles in the Recycle Box;
• Has the least number of Dishes in the Dish Queue.

In the case of a further tie, players share the victory.

Chapter 10: Quick Rules

Depending on the number of players, prepare the common play area and the reserve.

Each player prepares their play area and:

• Chooses 1 of their 4 food tokens and makes sure that no other player has an identical one. They put it on their menu board;
• Randomly draws 1 of their 3 remaining food tokens. They put it on their menu board;
• Finally chooses 1 Beverage from the common play area and puts it, turned over, in the recycle box of their own Yatai.

Each player, in turn order:

• checks and resolves any penalty in the Customer queue;
• Chooses 1 action tile among those available, inserts it in the 2x3 grid on the action board, and the removed tile becomes available again;
• Performs the actions of the row or column chosen.

At the end of the turn, move the marker on the turn tracker. At the end of turn 12, always in turn order, each player can serve all the Customers and/or Tourists left in queue at their own Yatai. Finally, count the VP on the review track and assign the VP for the majority of Customers and dishes served by color.

Check for any ties and declare the winner.