How do you increase foot traffic?

[P4wn4g3]

I've had 26 place settings since level 4 restaurant and still haven't filled all those seats, I haven't had the need to make more than 1 of each cooking station. People don't even get mad yet, much less leave.

[Cereal]

I believe the number of customers you get is based on what point of the story you're in, your reputation level and your restaurant level.

I didn't struggle at all before restaurant level 8, but after that, every rush hour was a mad dash to try and keep all the customers happy. Oftentimes 4 orders come out at once, 3 dishes need to be carried to snooty nobles, 6 are waiting in line to checkout, and 1 or 2 children are timing out because their dishes have to be cooked after the Noble's orders.

[Sandwich Specialist]

Agreed with the first comment. I'm at reputation 20, restaurant level 10 and the lunch/dinner rushes are very stressful. I think the pacing works well bc you get to chill in the beginning, stress out, get everything done and breathe again, then stress out once more.

[P4wn4g3]

I have restaurant level 12, reputation 18 or so. I just haven't progressed past the third debt yet, I keep finding other things to buy. I think I'll be there soon though. The nobles make things more interesting but I can keep up with everyone just fine.

[Sandwich Specialist]

Maybe the third debt brings more nobles, not sure. It was manageable in the beginning but there's definitely days it gets super stressful when tons of nobles start coming. It has a very RNG feel to how busy it gets each day.

[BlackyxD]

Originally posted by egirl with a praise kink:

Agreed with the first comment. I'm at reputation 20, restaurant level 10 and the lunch/dinner rushes are very stressful. I think the pacing works well bc you get to chill in the beginning, stress out, get everything done and breathe again, then stress out once more.

well sounds just like actual working in a real kitchen xDD (im a chef btw.)

[Raye]

Unconfirmed but I have suspicion on the game always making sure you have at least 2 customers in your shop at all times. So I tried to kick out people as soon as possible to see if a 2nd person would come in as soon as 1 of the 2 customers leave. I serve food to the slow walkers such as elderly and regular nobles/tourist so make them leave faster. I haven't determine if this is true or even worth the effort.

[The Maw]

Originally posted by egirl with a praise kink:

Agreed with the first comment. I'm at reputation 20, restaurant level 10 and the lunch/dinner rushes are very stressful. I think the pacing works well bc you get to chill in the beginning, stress out, get everything done and breathe again, then stress out once more.

The moment I started getting Nobles; Stress levels went from 0 to 200% REAL FAST.

[P4wn4g3]

Now that I upgraded to restaurant level 15 I have a few more customers, I had to build more stations. People keep ordering expensive dishes that take longer to cook.

[P4wn4g3]

So I just cleared debt 3 and no new customers are coming in than from before, so I think you guys might have been having a harder time than I was managing the restaurant or something is slowing my foot traffic and I don't know why. Serving nobles can be a bit harder, but now that I decided to build duplicate cooking stations that became pretty easy again. My 26 seats still don't fill up. How many seats do you guys have? This sucks because I can't make money very fast when people aren't coming in. I also only have decor that increases the amount of kids/nobles/greater nobles/cops, not sure if I need to just get some decor for everyone here or if they cancel each other.

[P4wn4g3]

So nobody else has the issue? I mistakenly said 12 place settings, but I recounted it later and its 26. I didn't really think to double check originally. Anyway my restaurant is max but its mostly empty space.

[Nomad]

I got level 11 store, 1 of each tier 4 station, 15 seats.

I can manage decent flow with this. It is possible to fill up during lunch and dinner if I get distracted. Also if there's more orders for longer tier 4 recipes, kids start getting annoyed.

I tried to make my seating layout efficient by putting the seats 1 tile away from the counter so customers walk less to get their food.

And most dishes spawn on the top counter, so I placed the stations on the bottom half to avoid the 'grab dish' icon overlapping with the station icon.

But yeh foot traffic does still feel light. It's the longer cook times that make customers sit longer.

[P4wn4g3]

It literally doesn't matter if people get annoyed, you can only get a tiny tip anyway. Annoying people is fine. Only if they walk out is there a problem, and that hasn't happened to me since near the beginning of the game, if then. The greater nobles bug out, and people walk in trying to order something stupid, but I don't count those. Other than that I gave someone the wrong order once and they walked out and that's the only time I can remember someone actually walking out. I think there were a couple kids at the very beginning that walked out. I bought tons of cop rugs and paintings, the cops are great they are fast and can order expensive foods.

But yeah if there is some sort of a cap on the number of customers at one time around like 15 or whatever, that seriously needs removed. You can't make a whole lot of money at the current rate. I did get 60k in a day, but that was a bunch of tier 4 dishes which take several sessions of farming ingredients before you can make them, and then they use all those ingredients in one go so I'm not actually sure if they are faster than tier 3. Tier 3 gets you 30k with only one or two days of farming mats. Seems kinda unbalanced. But then that's the story of this game so far.

[Psykout]

Originally posted by P4wn4g3:

But yeah if there is some sort of a cap on the number of customers at one time around like 15 or whatever, that seriously needs removed.

Definitely feels like this is the case. Your best option is to have enough crafting stations that you don't have to queue dishes to get them out of the door faster.

[P4wn4g3]

I don't think that pays itself off. Maybe 2 crafting stations does, but not 3.

[Psykout]

Originally posted by P4wn4g3:

I don't think that pays itself off. Maybe 2 crafting stations does, but not 3.

100% having two full sets will increase your pacing and daily meals served. The higher end dishes just take too long to be having a station queued up with 3-4 meals. We've already established that the flow of customers is confined to speed, not space, so the faster you can serve someone the faster they become another customer.