Passengers are not using Cafe at all

[El Capilee]

Hi, I'm running my game is experimental mode.
Is this the reason that passengers are not using Cafe at all?
Is it just me or does others get same bug?
Thanks.

[shiggies713]

they are using my cafe, its just terribly ineffecient compared to vending machines so far...

[modair]

For the cafe there comes soon a complete new overhauled version.

[Wing Nut]

Make sure you have a blue door to the kitchen, not a Staff door.

[Treearecool]

Did you set your price too high?

[shiggies713]

one thing i have confusion about is with the little shops. I plopped down a pizza shop and it was doing pretty good. Then I made a kitchen, cafe area with seating and i put the pizza shop in there.

Now all the pax do is stand in line at the cash register, get angry because thats what ALL the pax are doing now for food (despite being like 5 food/drink vending machines around) and the pizza shop went from making thousands a day to a couple hundred. My kitchen has 2 of everything and I hired 6 food staff, and it cannot even come close to the effeciency of a vending machine.

I just don't see any logical reason to actually use the cafe and kitchen or is it just me?

is the cafe/kitchen intended to be like overflow catch? like put it far away from the gates so it is always 2nd option?

[Scifiwriterguy]

Okay, a few issues, so I'll hit them sequentially.

Pax not using cafe:
If anything, pax overuse cafes, so if they're not using it at all, it means that it's not set up properly or it's not ready to receive customers. Check the following:
•There is a kitchen zone set up and assigned to your cafe zone. You must actually zone them, not just install the objects.
•You have cash registers installed and assigned to the cafe
•Your kitchen zone has at least one prep station and one of each type of prep equipment and food storage equipment. (Coolers, shelves, cookers.)
•You have food workers employed and staffing your kitchen and cash registers.
•Your food inventory storage isn't empty. By default, retail delivery only happens once per day, and your kitchen will not function until its inventory has been delivered. Hover your mouse over your coolers and shelves to view stock on hand. If it's zero, you need to wait for a delivery.

Problems with kiosks and cafes, efficiency:
At present, kiosks and cafes usually don't get along. When a cafe goes in, most people see a crash in the usage of kiosks like pizza stands. This is because the cafes advertise too strongly - that is, they're too attractive in the simulation - and pax often ignore other options because they're overshadowed. You can mitigate this somewhat by keeping a large separation between cafes and kiosks so that their zones of advertising don't overlap (those zones are invisible, before you ask), but you're almost always going to see a dip in kiosk usage after a cafe goes in.

Cafes draw so many customers that they tend to bottleneck. Having only a few registers and a tiny kitchen leads to disaster. The process time for the cafe is longer than for a vending machine - the trade for a much higher satisfaction of hunger - so each transaction is going to tie up resources for longer. A kitchen with two of everything and especially only six staff is going to be overwhelmed in any but the tiniest of airports. You're likely going to need a lot more staff and probably a bigger kitchen to handle the pax load or you're going to see huge bottlenecks.

As for the intended role of the cafe, it's not an overflow catch; it's intended to be your heavy artillery for dealing with hungry pax. The problem is that it's not working quite right yet.



For both:
It's important to note that once this update cycle concludes, cafes and retail both are due for a complete overhaul. The devs have been long aware of the problems with the cafes and retail outlets, so they're planning a lot of heavy-duty changes. No word yet on exactly what or a timeline (except that it's beginning when the performance update is in the can).

Hope all this helps!

[shiggies713]

ok i seem to have a cafe working nice and proper. 4 of everything, I think 14 cash registers, 20 something employees for 5 nearly fully booked gates is working pretty well. There is also one pizza shop far away and a few vending machines. I plopped down a couple pa systems in my cafe and suddendly my board flight happiness went way up too.

[Scifiwriterguy]

Sounds great. :)

Keeping that separation between cafe and kiosk is key if you want both to have business. PA speakers are important to minimize instances of pax delaying or missing flights, so good job adding those. :D