As a father of a growing toddler, I’m always looking for fun new educational games and ways to spend time with my daughter. While a simply fun game is fine, it’s nice when there are opportunities to teach her about something new.

She’s been really interested lately in imaginative play with pretending she is a chef or is shopping. I was pleased to find some free online games recently that have a ton of options for these kind of activities that are easy to jump into and play with my young child.

My favorite one that I found was called Pizza Cafe. The premise is simple, you run a pizzeria and have to deliver the unique orders of each customers in a timely fashion. The frequency of orders and their complexity ramps up as you go through each level. You also have to make sure you use the money you earn from each order to quickly buy more ingredients. It is a great example of a game that is easy to play and difficult to master. It rewards repeated play to hone your strategy to get better and learn from your mistakes.

I showed my daughter the game and she had a ton of questions about how it worked as well as why I was doing anything at any given moment. I really appreciated the chance to bring her into my lifelong love of gaming in this moment and I know she’ll love exploring all of the other types of restaurant simulator games available, like ones for coffee shops or burger places.

I’m looking forward to making more memories playing these games with my daughter and teaching her at the same time!