One item on the menu is better than a variety.

[BrassMunkee]

The advice online for this game is really poor, may take some time for actual best practices to be common knowledge - one thing I noticed is most guides encourage a variety of menu items to maximize profit. I couldn't figure out how that made any sense, I thought maybe variety might increase traffic to the restaurant, or increase likes, or anything - but nope.

I just tested 1 menu item after gathering enough for 36 total dishes. It's the most expensive item I can make, so clearly, selling anything else is a net loss, unless variety actually is important. I doubled my best profit and I sold all 36 in one night. Bit lucky it landed on exactly 36 customers, but even if I was over or under a few, it still would have killed.

If you're looking for cash, pick something and get a lot of that one thing. I used the Tropical Fish Sushi set, because all the fish are easy to get in bulk. My only limiter for doing this every night is rice.

The more I think about this, that's kind of disappointing. Increasing menu slots with higher cooksta ranks is rendered kind of pointless knowing this.

[BrassMunkee]

Oh and it also ended the night at a 5.0 score. No impact there either. The number of items on your menu does nothing.

[Rogue]

You might be right but I noticed that after setting a smaller menu with only three items, some customers actually came in and didn't want the shark that I was selling. I quickly added tuna and resolved that issue. So I think maybe a few items is the way to go.

[BrassMunkee]

Originally posted by Rogue:

You might be right but I noticed that after setting a smaller menu with only three items, some customers actually came in and didn't want the shark that I was selling. I quickly added tuna and resolved that issue. So I think maybe a few items is the way to go.

Yeah, they will be picky and not buy your best item sometimes when you have a variety. I believe that's when you have items with higher taste ratings.

So 1 item is the way to go. They always buy that 1 item.

[RandomTurtle]

On event nights I always only deploy the 1 dish that is themed for the party. Other nights I run 3 dishes but only because they are very close in price.

However you seem correct that the customers will order whatever is available even if all 45 dishes are the same.

[Honorable_D]

Honestly, there should be a "variety" penalty based on your Cooksta rating. Say at Diamond rank you need to have at least 5 items on the menu or you'll be penalized in some way.

Just being able to have a single item on the menu seems wrong, especially when the game has so many damn dishes.

[Rallianto]

Even when there is a party, let's say Tuna party, if you only have Tuna dishes on the menu, some customers will be unhappy. If you only serve one kind of dish, more often than not, some customers will be unhappy.
I don't know the exact stat or how it works, but only serving one kind of dish is not always a good idea

[RandomTurtle]

Originally posted by Rallianto:

Even when there is a party, let's say Tuna party, if you only have Tuna dishes on the menu, some customers will be unhappy. If you only serve one kind of dish, more often than not, some customers will be unhappy.
I don't know the exact stat or how it works, but only serving one kind of dish is not always a good idea

I have not experienced this, the only time I've seen customers unhappy is if the place they choose to sit down isn't cleaned instantly.

[BrassMunkee]

Originally posted by RandomTurtle01:

Originally posted by Rallianto:

Even when there is a party, let's say Tuna party, if you only have Tuna dishes on the menu, some customers will be unhappy. If you only serve one kind of dish, more often than not, some customers will be unhappy.
I don't know the exact stat or how it works, but only serving one kind of dish is not always a good idea

I have not experienced this, the only time I've seen customers unhappy is if the place they choose to sit down isn't cleaned instantly.

This is correct, I'm third night in a row now and my profits are growing each night as I abuse this. It's a little disappointing actually. The only time a customer was unhappy was when a spot was dirty.

[Rallianto]

It sure needs tweaking, but I am not lying, on a party night I offered only related dishes, and some people came and, showed unhappy face, left without buying.
I have also tried only serving one kind of dish, the most expensive one, and again some customers come in, show unhappy smiley, instantly walks out

[BrassMunkee]

Originally posted by Rallianto:

It sure needs tweaking, but I am not lying, on a party night I offered only related dishes, and some people came and, showed unhappy face, left without buying.
I have also tried only serving one kind of dish, the most expensive one, and again some customers come in, show unhappy smiley, instantly walks out

Are you confident that it's not the dirty dishes? I let my staff do most of the work and man the wasabi and a few close by customers, so I can watch. I get unhappy customers when dishes aren't cleaned up in time. That's the only situation I've personally seen it happen. Not saying you're wrong, just trying to figure the game out.

[Butcher Bill]

Perhaps the benefit of more than one item on the menu is that you don't run out of any one item too soon.

[BrassMunkee]

Originally posted by Butcher Bill:

Perhaps the benefit of more than one item on the menu is that you don't run out of any one item too soon.

Some recipes are probably too difficult to acquire enough to sell only that every night, for that reason. That's why I chose the tropical fish sushi set and upgraded the hell out of it. Fish farm gives me 100s of the ingredients to make it. The only limiter for me is rice, but I'm expanding that aggressively.

Upgrading the sushi set has brought it up to 7 meals per use, over $700 each per meal. Then I reinvest in both farm, and maybe spend 1 dive here and there getting more titan tigerfish, they reproduce a bit slower.

[Rallianto]

Originally posted by BrassMunkee:

Are you confident that it's not the dirty dishes? I let my staff do most of the work and man the wasabi and a few close by customers, so I can watch. I get unhappy customers when dishes aren't cleaned up in time. That's the only situation I've personally seen it happen. Not saying you're wrong, just trying to figure the game out.

It could be dirty dishes. When I experienced this I did not have staff with cleaning perks. I have now, and I have not experienced it again (but I haven't served only one dish since either)

[{Wutang}RZA]

I've had customers upset at not having a dish they wanted. I think it only occurred on a party night though where I ran out of specialty dishes.

On normal nights, yeah, you can run only one dish. I still think though, depending on the stage of the game you're at, it's sometimes worthwhile to have a variety just to run down resources more evenly.

At post-game, I'm growing nothing but cucumbers, rice, sea grapes, and just looping the final area for a narwhal (cut up), pobeagle shark (capture), greenland shark (capture), and the bone shark thing (capture). Those are put on my and the branch menu every night for 50-60k or so profits a day

[sirozzy]

Originally posted by Rallianto:

It sure needs tweaking, but I am not lying, on a party night I offered only related dishes, and some people came and, showed unhappy face, left without buying.
I have also tried only serving one kind of dish, the most expensive one, and again some customers come in, show unhappy smiley, instantly walks out

This is an experience I've had as well. On Swordfish Party Night I only served Sailfish dishes and no marlin. A customer walked in and instantly a picture of a marlin went over their head then an angry face and they walked out.