Menu Prices

[Foxxy]

Does anyone have suggestions on what to do to make any profit while keeping responsibility? especially early game, it seems almost impossible to make any profit at all and actually go negative if you just outright buy the best ingredients available.

[MechaShadowV2]

thats why you dont buy the best ingredients at first.

[Foxxy]

Originally posted by MechaShadowV2:

thats why you dont buy the best ingredients at first.

that's why i'm asking for suggestions, because you can't buy the worst either, if you're responsibility goes to low things get bad.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

Well, I mean, that's why Kitchen Nightmares is a thing hey

[Foxxy]

Originally posted by Prosecutor Godot:

Well, I mean, that's why Kitchen Nightmares is a thing hey

lmao, yeah i guess, big problem for me is that i had to start over because i didn't know about the price changes and got an offer to let someone eat for free on their meal and get me more customers instead, me not knowing of the change just did it thinking "no biggie i can just make it back" and instead i got put in a hole i can't get out of lol.

[BLKWave]

I have no suggestions for you, sorry. I find the need to strat pricing in a casual simulator inane. That being said my only suggestion would be for the dev to give the user full control over menu customization including setting customized prices and leave the consequences if too high and too low to us.

[Bloodworm]

Here's some tips I previously posted:

Just a couple things I've learned to help make more money in the early days of the game:

1) Keep only three dishes on your menu - if you serve 4 or 5 different dishes, you'll drive up your ingredient cost without making any more money. I believe the only benefit to having more dishes on your menu is that you'll get new customers faster, but you'll quickly hit your capacity anyway so that doesn't really matter.

2) Pay attention to the "prestige" level of your restaurant! This is based on the level of the dishes on your menu. If you have 1 "Restaurant" level and 2 "Casual" level dishes, you'll remain at the "Casual" prestige level. But if you put 2 "Restaurant" and 1 "Casual" on your menu, it'll bump you up to the "Restaurant" prestige level. The prestige level determines how much the customers care about ingredient quality and technique level.

3) Related to that - if you're at the casual level, 1-star ingredients are fine for the customers. If you're at the restaurant level, you need 2-star ingredients to get 100's. BUT, you can still get a good service out of using 1-star ingredients as long as your dishes are delivered in a timely fashion. Similarly, when you move up to a "Bistronomic" prestige level, you need 3-star ingredients to get 100s, but can still get a good service out of 2-star ingredients. If you're strapped for cash at this level, you will make MUCH more from having good services with 2-star ingredients than you will having great services with the much more expensive 3-star ingredients.

4) As far as ingredient buying - this gets a bit weird. From what I can tell, you can buy equal amounts of 2-star and 1-star ingredients in every category and wind up with all 2-star ingredients. But when you move up to 3-star, you can no longer do the "half-and-half" trick. When you're at the 2-star level, I recommend buying half your ingredients from the two best 2-star vendors, and the other half from the cheapest 1-star. The result is that you'll still maintain responsibility, but save a good bit of money while still having all 2-star ingredients.

5) At the 3-star level, I'm currently buying all of my meat, fish, and vegetables from the 3-star vendors, and all my dairy/dry goods from the cheapest 2-star vendor. The result seems to be that most of my items turn out 3-star. But as I said above, if I really needed money, I could just buy a blend of 2-star and 1-star ingredients and still have good services. I just don't really need the money that bad, because I've been making plenty.

6) One last thing...it pays to have 1 dish on your menu be a level higher than the rest. So for a while, I was running a menu with 1 bistronomic-level dish and 2 restaurant-level dishes. The result is that I made extra money off of the bistro dish, but my overall prestige level remained at "restaurant-level", so my customers remained less demanding. BUT, what you don't want to do is have 1 dish lower than the other two. So if you're restaurant level but have 2 restaurant dishes and 1 casual, the casual dish is going to sell for such a low price that it'll be losing you money. When I had restaurant-level steak and sole selling for 20 each, and a casual caprese selling for 6 each, it's pretty clear why I wasn't making as much as I could've.

Sorry for the wordiness, but I hope at least some of that was helpful!

[Foxxy]

Originally posted by bloodworm:

Here's some tips I previously posted:

Just a couple things I've learned to help make more money in the early days of the game:

1) Keep only three dishes on your menu - if you serve 4 or 5 different dishes, you'll drive up your ingredient cost without making any more money. I believe the only benefit to having more dishes on your menu is that you'll get new customers faster, but you'll quickly hit your capacity anyway so that doesn't really matter.

2) Pay attention to the "prestige" level of your restaurant! This is based on the level of the dishes on your menu. If you have 1 "Restaurant" level and 2 "Casual" level dishes, you'll remain at the "Casual" prestige level. But if you put 2 "Restaurant" and 1 "Casual" on your menu, it'll bump you up to the "Restaurant" prestige level. The prestige level determines how much the customers care about ingredient quality and technique level.

3) Related to that - if you're at the casual level, 1-star ingredients are fine for the customers. If you're at the restaurant level, you need 2-star ingredients to get 100's. BUT, you can still get a good service out of using 1-star ingredients as long as your dishes are delivered in a timely fashion. Similarly, when you move up to a "Bistronomic" prestige level, you need 3-star ingredients to get 100s, but can still get a good service out of 2-star ingredients. If you're strapped for cash at this level, you will make MUCH more from having good services with 2-star ingredients than you will having great services with the much more expensive 3-star ingredients.

4) As far as ingredient buying - this gets a bit weird. From what I can tell, you can buy equal amounts of 2-star and 1-star ingredients in every category and wind up with all 2-star ingredients. But when you move up to 3-star, you can no longer do the "half-and-half" trick. When you're at the 2-star level, I recommend buying half your ingredients from the two best 2-star vendors, and the other half from the cheapest 1-star. The result is that you'll still maintain responsibility, but save a good bit of money while still having all 2-star ingredients.

5) At the 3-star level, I'm currently buying all of my meat, fish, and vegetables from the 3-star vendors, and all my dairy/dry goods from the cheapest 2-star vendor. The result seems to be that most of my items turn out 3-star. But as I said above, if I really needed money, I could just buy a blend of 2-star and 1-star ingredients and still have good services. I just don't really need the money that bad, because I've been making plenty.

6) One last thing...it pays to have 1 dish on your menu be a level higher than the rest. So for a while, I was running a menu with 1 bistronomic-level dish and 2 restaurant-level dishes. The result is that I made extra money off of the bistro dish, but my overall prestige level remained at "restaurant-level", so my customers remained less demanding. BUT, what you don't want to do is have 1 dish lower than the other two. So if you're restaurant level but have 2 restaurant dishes and 1 casual, the casual dish is going to sell for such a low price that it'll be losing you money. When I had restaurant-level steak and sole selling for 20 each, and a casual caprese selling for 6 each, it's pretty clear why I wasn't making as much as I could've.

Sorry for the wordiness, but I hope at least some of that was helpful!

Thanks, this is exactly what i was looking for, i'll try this out on a new save since i think i'm in an unrecoverable spot now and see if that works any better.

[Foxxy]

Originally posted by BLKWave:

I have no suggestions for you, sorry. I find the need to strat pricing in a casual simulator inane. That being said my only suggestion would be for the dev to give the user full control over menu customization including setting customized prices and leave the consequences if too high and too low to us.

yeah, also since you don't get to control prices right away either you can't exactly raise them immediately, you're just kinda stuck waiting till it even lets you. But I agree that you should get control of pricing and consequences to the user if you're gonna make it so harsh on the user already might as well let them do it themselves.

[Mytrix]

bloodworm tips work very very well, you won't make a lot of money at the beginning but you won't lose any as well. The moment you can have a "restaurant" meal, put it as the first meal (I use Meatballs, work pretty well) and keep the other two with "casual" (Steak and Sole for me) and work with that for a few days, it won't take long until you can buy a few upgrades like a second fridge and a second warmer. From there, I usually switch my menu to three "restaurant" meals.

The biggest help, never put more than three meals on your menu, the only gain you get from more than 3 meals is the fact you will win more customers faster... But there is no point to do that since you will hit the limit of your dining room very fast anyway, even more if you are already at the limit (First dining room, the limit is 10 until you upgrade it). You might want to put more meals the day you will upgrade your dining room limit to get those new customers faster if you don't need to make money, but the moment you hit that limit, switch back to three meals. So you need to see the menu like this, you want money? Three meals. You want more customer faster? Five meals... You want a balance between? Four meals. That's how the menu work.

[Foxxy]

Originally posted by Mytrix:

bloodworm tips work very very well, you won't make a lot of money at the beginning but you won't lose any as well. The moment you can have a "restaurant" meal, put it as the first meal (I use Meatballs, work pretty well) and keep the other two with "casual" (Steak and Sole for me) and work with that for a few days, it won't take long until you can buy a few upgrades like a second fridge and a second warmer. From there, I usually switch my menu to three "restaurant" meals.

The biggest help, never put more than three meals on your menu, the only gain you get from more than 3 meals is the fact you will win more customers faster... But there is no point to do that since you will hit the limit of your dining room very fast anyway, even more if you are already at the limit (First dining room, the limit is 10 until you upgrade it). You might want to put more meals the day you will upgrade your dining room limit to get those new customers faster if you don't need to make money, but the moment you hit that limit, switch back to three meals. So you need to see the menu like this, you want money? Three meals. You want more customer faster? Five meals... You want a balance between? Four meals. That's how the menu work.

interestingly enough, i was already only doing 3 meals because i found that 5 was too much to handle to get 100 scores on with the current time alloted for each meal, 3 has been doable just enough to get 100's without turning off the patience meter which i don't want to do.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

Thanks for the tips - the game got a lot harder when I went to 4 menu items and now i see why

[kang50155]

Originally posted by bloodworm:

Here's some tips I previously posted:

Just a couple things I've learned to help make more money in the early days of the game:

1) Keep only three dishes on your menu - if you serve 4 or 5 different dishes, you'll drive up your ingredient cost without making any more money. I believe the only benefit to having more dishes on your menu is that you'll get new customers faster, but you'll quickly hit your capacity anyway so that doesn't really matter.

2) Pay attention to the "prestige" level of your restaurant! This is based on the level of the dishes on your menu. If you have 1 "Restaurant" level and 2 "Casual" level dishes, you'll remain at the "Casual" prestige level. But if you put 2 "Restaurant" and 1 "Casual" on your menu, it'll bump you up to the "Restaurant" prestige level. The prestige level determines how much the customers care about ingredient quality and technique level.

3) Related to that - if you're at the casual level, 1-star ingredients are fine for the customers. If you're at the restaurant level, you need 2-star ingredients to get 100's. BUT, you can still get a good service out of using 1-star ingredients as long as your dishes are delivered in a timely fashion. Similarly, when you move up to a "Bistronomic" prestige level, you need 3-star ingredients to get 100s, but can still get a good service out of 2-star ingredients. If you're strapped for cash at this level, you will make MUCH more from having good services with 2-star ingredients than you will having great services with the much more expensive 3-star ingredients.

4) As far as ingredient buying - this gets a bit weird. From what I can tell, you can buy equal amounts of 2-star and 1-star ingredients in every category and wind up with all 2-star ingredients. But when you move up to 3-star, you can no longer do the "half-and-half" trick. When you're at the 2-star level, I recommend buying half your ingredients from the two best 2-star vendors, and the other half from the cheapest 1-star. The result is that you'll still maintain responsibility, but save a good bit of money while still having all 2-star ingredients.

5) At the 3-star level, I'm currently buying all of my meat, fish, and vegetables from the 3-star vendors, and all my dairy/dry goods from the cheapest 2-star vendor. The result seems to be that most of my items turn out 3-star. But as I said above, if I really needed money, I could just buy a blend of 2-star and 1-star ingredients and still have good services. I just don't really need the money that bad, because I've been making plenty.

6) One last thing...it pays to have 1 dish on your menu be a level higher than the rest. So for a while, I was running a menu with 1 bistronomic-level dish and 2 restaurant-level dishes. The result is that I made extra money off of the bistro dish, but my overall prestige level remained at "restaurant-level", so my customers remained less demanding. BUT, what you don't want to do is have 1 dish lower than the other two. So if you're restaurant level but have 2 restaurant dishes and 1 casual, the casual dish is going to sell for such a low price that it'll be losing you money. When I had restaurant-level steak and sole selling for 20 each, and a casual caprese selling for 6 each, it's pretty clear why I wasn't making as much as I could've.

Sorry for the wordiness, but I hope at least some of that was helpful!

Thank you for your service bloodworm, If you will ask my question pls send me.
I'm using 3-star ingredients and 75% of the menu is bistro and the price is high. I'm still getting a score in the 70. Is it because of the price? I haven't exactly figured it out yet. I kept changing the menu because I don't think it's a bug in a particular recipe. If it's because of the price, do I have to use the Exceptional ingredients?

[milkygirl]

Originally posted by kang50155:

Thank you for your service bloodworm, If you will ask my question pls send me.
I'm using 3-star ingredients and 75% of the menu is bistro and the price is high. I'm still getting a score in the 70. Is it because of the price? I haven't exactly figured it out yet. I kept changing the menu because I don't think it's a bug in a particular recipe. If it's because of the price, do I have to use the Exceptional ingredients?

bloodworm's advice is amazing!

There is a way to help figure out what's keeping you from getting a higher score. When the reviews come up at the end of service, take note of the "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" below each dish listed as part of the review on the righthand side of the second screen. You can hover over each "thumbs down" to see why the thumbs down was given. That will tell you what is bringing down the score.

My guess would be the either the price, or you're putting out less than "A+" meals. Setting the price point at "high" means customers will be very picky. But reading the thumbs up/thumbs down feedback should let you know for sure! At least, that's what I've done to adjust when I'm suddenly getting less-than-100% scores and don't know why.

[kang50155]

Originally posted by milkygirl:

Originally posted by kang50155:

Thank you for your service bloodworm, If you will ask my question pls send me.
I'm using 3-star ingredients and 75% of the menu is bistro and the price is high. I'm still getting a score in the 70. Is it because of the price? I haven't exactly figured it out yet. I kept changing the menu because I don't think it's a bug in a particular recipe. If it's because of the price, do I have to use the Exceptional ingredients?

bloodworm's advice is amazing!

There is a way to help figure out what's keeping you from getting a higher score. When the reviews come up at the end of service, take note of the "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" below each dish listed as part of the review on the righthand side of the second screen. You can hover over each "thumbs down" to see why the thumbs down was given. That will tell you what is bringing down the score.

My guess would be the either the price, or you're putting out less than "A+" meals. Setting the price point at "high" means customers will be very picky. But reading the thumbs up/thumbs down feedback should let you know for sure! At least, that's what I've done to adjust when I'm suddenly getting less-than-100% scores and don't know why.

Solved!
I figured out what the problem was. The problem was also the ingredients, and to get 100 points at a high price on the bistro menu, I have to use exceptional ingredients.
Unfortunately, I haven't opened it yet. So when I received the price in the middle, I got a 100 point service.
Thank you for reminding me what the problem is !