Noise and Price

[Able Archer]

A couple of questions--

How do you deal with noise in a restaurant? My main restaurant's biggest complaint is it's too noisy. Doesn't seem to bother people much, though, it's quite popular otherwise.

Also, on the ratings, how do you positively affect the price rating? I thought dropping prices would help, but that lowered the rating. Raising prices only seems to increase complaints about the cost.

Thanks in advance!

[CobraA1]

Floor mounted decorations like partitions can help with the noise, as well as careful planning of tables. If you have a second floor, you can move some tables up there so you can have your restaurant less crowded.

If your restaurant never fills all of its tables, remove some of them, space them out, and add decorations. If you never have more than two people at some of your 4-seat tables, replace them 2-seat tables. If you don't mind losing some customers at peak times, you can remove even more tables (although do keep in mind the goals for your scenario).

Price rating, you will have to pay attention to what customers want and how they respond to your prices. It may take some experimentation with individual foods. The default price is usually a good starting point.

I haven't played the game in a while, so I kinda forgot the exact pricing strategy I used.

[Able Archer]

Thanks CobraA1!

I'm struggling with understanding why I would ever NOT use the best ingredients. I guess if I wanted to run a discount restaurant for low prices, then have low quality offerings to match?


So, your comment makes me wonder--I've got a lot of customers that say the quality should be better. So, I try to increase the quality of the food. Should I instead maybe lower the quality of the restaurant?

I guess its stuff to try. Any thoughts greatly appreciated!

[Cat on Linux]

Originally posted by Able Archer:

So, your comment makes me wonder--I've got a lot of customers that say the quality should be better. So, I try to increase the quality of the food. Should I instead maybe lower the quality of the restaurant?

what customers usually mean with "bad food quality" complaint is the match of food price and food quality. if your chefs not skilled enough and half of dishes is 2-3 stars people will complain if the price is higher than default menu, or even if price is -10% off. if you already added to decorations value people can have higher expectations judging by your overall restaurant rate.
what can help with such complaint? lower menu price to -20% off. assign skilled chefs to weak recipes. remove weak recipes from your menu.

as for noise, it's a nuisance. usually you want to have good income from each restaurant? removing tables and spacing them is so wasteful and can drive you into neg balance or stagnation if used early in game. Less customers, less experience for chefs, less income, no money to expand.
if your campaign depend on perfect rating goal and you really have to deal with noise then you should explore possibility to deal with it temporarily for the sake of goal. Maybe when you will have 5 star restaurant with chefs who maxed their recipes and can serve 5 star dishes then you can raise prices to justify less seats.