November 2026 - Julien and Melissa Cooke are 39, Viola Cameron is 35, Anthony Cooke is 9.
Julien Cooke is living his dream as the chef/owner of the finest restaurant in Providence.
He may be a talented chef, but he has almost no business sense, so his wife Melissa takes care of things at the front of the house.
Viola has been their waitress since she moved to Providence from Three Lakes more than ten years ago.
She's a great waitress, and the customers love her.
Even with the generous tips, Melissa and Julien know she's long overdue for a raise. Viola is far too loyal to quit, but they feel guilty underpaying her, especially with her new baby.
"Thanks so much, Melissa," Viola says.
"We really appreciate all of your hard work around here," Melissa tells her. "I don't know what we'd do without you."
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Even at home, the restaurant takes up most of their time. Julien is constantly trying out new recipes at home.
"What do you think of the cranberry-orange pie?" he asks his son.
"It's really good!" Anthony answers.
Anthony likes trying his father's recipes, but other than that he has no interest in the restaurant. He'd much rather practice the violin or study about bugs.
But maybe his son's lack of interest in cooking is a good thing. Owning a restaurant is a lot of work, and even though the Hotel Ampersand is very popular, profit margins are slim. To supplement his income, he writes a cooking column for the Providence Times. Still, he wouldn't give up the restaurant for anything. He's happiest when he's in the restaurant's kitchen cooking up something special.
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I really like playing the restaurant, but even though it's a Rank 8 business, they only make about $300 each time I play it. Viola makes more than that with her salary. I'm not sure if this is because Viola's salary is too high or if I should raise the prices on the menu. Have other people had similar problems running restaurants?
Yum cranberry-orange is a great combo! WTG Julien!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure on how much my businesses make. I have a hack that the payment to employees doesn't come out of my household funds, so that helps with the money. I also have a few other business hacks, where they don't just up and quit, and I think something that makes the skills/money pay out make more sense. MATY I believe is where I got tons of hacks for OFB.
And yes, at rank 8, you can charge more for the food. And also check out your menu, only have items on there that cost a decent amount.. like maybe skip the soda/chips. lol
I've never actually had cranberry-orange pie, but I was trying to think of an appropriate berry pie for November, and it popped into my head. I think I might have to try to make it myself.
ReplyDeleteI will look into charging more for the food. I think I raised the prices once, which made it really hard to get people to come for a while, but now people are flocking there, so I guess it's time for another price hike. But I think playing a restaurant is a lot of fun. In fact, Julien was the first premade character I decided to include in Providence because I wanted to give him a chance to start his own restaurant.
I like Julien much better in your game than in mine. He's pretty sleazy in my game, LOL! ;)
ReplyDeleteI like playing restaurants, but I always have a hard time getting them to be profitable so that a family can support themselves on just it. The Willow ranks really high, but they don't make a lot of money at the end of the day, so Logan has a second job in the gaming career to supplement their income. :\ But you could try raising the prices again or do the plan menu option and take out all the really cheap stuff like Maisie said. I set up The Willow so that customers can only order things like lobster and other expensive items, LOL.
Restaurants are hard business to make profitable. I only have one in my game, Just Desserts, and it brings in almost nothing. Luckily, Schmidt's is fairly well off so for now they can survive. I don't know what would happen to them if they had to survive off the revenue for Just Desserts alone.
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