Slow Service, Chefs Idle

[Contingencee]

I didn't play Chef for about 6 months and I am loving the new additions to the game, especially the recipe editor :)

I did not have any problems making money before. However, currently, no matter what I try, people complain about slow service. Sometimes I have 15+ orders waiting to be cooked but half of my chefs are standing idle. Therefore most customers leave without paying which makes it impossible to make money.

I tried improving the speed of service in the following ways, but nothing seems to be working:
- Hiring more waiters and chefs than needed
- Specialising waiters and chefs in doing one or a few things, maxing out appropriate skills
- Buying more counters and appliances than needed, so there are always a few free ones
- Keeping the number of tables lower
- Only having recipes taking 3:30 or less to cook
- Adding many choppers to bring the cooking time to a minimum
- Rushing my chefs to cook faster with the special ability that I unlocked

My restaurant serves mostly food enthusiasts, gourmets, vegans and vegetarians. I know these are more picky, but still, half of the chefs are not working at any given time and if they do I am sure less people would leave without paying.

Any help would be deeply appreciated as I absolutely love the game!

[OwNathan]

Are you playing with an older savegame? Could you share a screenshot?

[Contingencee]

Thank you for the quick reply!
I started a new game on Patch 33 - version 0.7.7.

In this screenshot 4 out of 8 chefs are idle.13 orders waiting.
https://paste.pics/5a58c499a51104175ba36b93891a17f4

[OwNathan]

Well, first thing is to be sure you have enough tools for your recipes! Let's say you have a lot of fried stuff, you probably need more than a frier because they have a limited amount of cooking slots. That's usually what needs to be done if the kitchen is slow but is also overstaffed!

[Contingencee]

I have a lot more appliances than needed. I have only 2 fried recipes which aren't even very popular and I've never seen the 2 fryers I have occupied at the same time. All main courses are baked, and most of the rest is grilled or prepared on the stove, that's why I have a lot of these appliances and not many fryers.

[OwNathan]

What's your framerate while playing? Also, what are people complaining about on reviews?

[Contingencee]

The computer I've been playing on recently isn't very good so the game is a bit laggy. How can I check the exact frame rate?

People complain about the waiters extremely rarely (waiting for the bill or waiting to order). If they mention anything about the service it almost always is "we waited too long to eat" or something like that. I get 2 stars on average for service, while food and athmosphere are at 5 stars and prices are 3-5 stars.

[OwNathan]

Performances can drastically affect the service rating, especially with more demanding customers like blue collars!

Please drop me a line at [e-mail] and I will provide you a custom solution and see what happens!

[Contingencee]

Thank you so much for the quick assistance! I will drop you a line soon :)

[Contingencee]

Hey there!
Sorry I did not write sooner. You are right - it was a performance issue. I loaded my save on my powerful desktop at home and I started making a lot of money immediately.

Hoever, I can still see chefs being idle more than I think they should be. I have plenty of free appliances and orders waiting to be prepared. There might be a bug in there somewhere.

Thank you very much for the help. You're an example of a great developer and I wish you a lot more success with the game. It deserves more recognition :)

[OwNathan]

Originally posted by Contingencee:

Hey there!
Sorry I did not write sooner. You are right - it was a performance issue. I loaded my save on my powerful desktop at home and I started making a lot of money immediately.

Hoever, I can still see chefs being idle more than I think they should be. I have plenty of free appliances and orders waiting to be prepared. There might be a bug in there somewhere.

Thank you very much for the help. You're an example of a great developer and I wish you a lot more success with the game. It deserves more recognition :)

Thank you for your kind words!

It's unlikely there's a bug since that part of the game has been tested a million times, but it could be something else that's unclear! For example, are all chefs idle? The required tools for recipes are full?

[Frodo]

I noticed the counters had to be next to each other for multiple chefs to use a counter at the same time.
I have 2 chefs, and with 2 counters next to each other, they can be used at the same time. However, if I have a counter in each corner of a wall, both counters will never be used at once. Then I get one chef idling and the other chef running between the 2 counters.