Managing restaurants in The Sims 4

Good morning and happy Sunday everyone. Today, as you might not expect, we are going to talk about Dine Out. You don't have this pack yet but you ordered it for your birthday / for the 14th of July / for Christmas (cross out the unnecessary mentions). Here are some preparation tips I discovered while opening my own restaurant this week. With these, no doubt you'll be ready to open a 3 star as soon as the CD-ROM arrives.

Let's move on to the last step of this test: the restaurant gameplay. So I had just prepared my Sims with cooking/ gourmet cooking and mixology skills, but when I bought my restaurant, oh great disaster: you can't be a chef. You can't be a waiter, you can't greet customers. I was very disappointed on this point, it is the same principle as the stores of Au travail. Well, we'll have to do without!

If not, what can we do? First of all, let's discover the restaurant panel. In the bottom right corner we have various information about your business: stars, reviews, profits from meals - not the total, for that you need to dig a little deeper - the number of customers, the funds of the business, the possibility to open or close the store and the advantage points.

Restaurant menu and settings

First settings at the top (trade with a wheel): price margin, advertising offers, quality of ingredients, dress of the place for staff and customers. In this window, you can also fully customize the menu! I decided to remove everything, so I only have water on the menu. But then I click on the + in each category and add various dishes. There is something for everyone! To start, I recommend low level foods, because your chef is not very ... competent.

And a little bonus info: you have the possibility to set the parameters in the construction mode of a restaurant in the city.

The employees

Then, on the button of a man with a wheel, we hire staff. Waiter, host and chef. You can choose one per category at the beginning: advantage points will be needed to hire more.

The skills to be developed are as follows:

• for the chef: gourmet cooking (influences the quality of the food. Difficult dishes require high skill) and mixology (influences the quality of drinks. Difficult drinks require high skill)
• for the waiter: charisma (influences customers' evaluations when serving food) and fitness (influences how often a waiter risks spilling food)
• for the host: comedy (influences the customers' evaluations of the service when they are seated at the table) and charisma (influences the customers' evaluations of the service when they are seated at the table)

Well, that's it, the settings are done. Let's go to the pure gameplay.
The guests, upon arrival, present themselves to the host in the lobby to reserve a table. Your host will then place them on one of the available slots. After that, your Sims consult a menu and order from the waitress who reports everything to the chef. The whole thing is very realistic and often well done overall. Despite some small bugs, the Sims do their job (at least in my house they do!).

Here's a table served with delicious fresh food!

Below the customers, a star with their current review of the restaurant. If your performance is good, if the service is good, this rating will increase. You'll see why it's increasing with little icons that appear above the star showing the positive (or negative) aspect. For more details, point your cursor on the Sims and you will get his latest opinion.

In terms of interaction, you can interact with customers by offering them something, talking to them, asking if everything is going well and welcoming them. This does not displease the customer, who then criticizes positively. That said, this is my downfall of the game, as the owners don't do anything all day at the restaurant. You might as well build a house upstairs...

On the staff side, you have the possibility to pay them training to improve them, to congratulate them and to make them progress (or not) in their job.

At the end of the day, I check the reviews to see what needs to be improved and what is the best thing about the restaurant. A notification at the end of the day also opens with the daily report.

Nos deux propriétaires, ayant l’envie de se détendre, se sont rendus dans un autre restaurant, mais pour être, cette fois-ci, les clients. A l’arrivée, vous devez vous présenter à l’accueil, pour que l’hôte vous place sur une table. A table, vos Sims regardent un menu sans que vous leur demandiez, ce qui est très bien fait, nos Sims ont leur autonomie. Ce qui est marrant, c’est la possibilité de dessiner sur le set de table en attendant. C’est très réaliste et assez amusant. Ensuite, pour commander, vous cliquez sur votre table et choisissez l’interaction adaptée.  Un serveur prend donc la commande et vous l’amène sous peu. Mais comment choisir son repas ?

When ordering, a window will open with all the dishes. You choose what you want and you have to match it with the Sims of your choice. Only one dish and one drink per order, you will have to recommend if you want a dessert with a coffee.

At the end, you leave the table with the associated interaction by clicking on it and the amount due will be debited automatically.