Restaurant Empire: A Culinary Simulation Masterpiece [Gaming][Review]

Who enjoys Simulation games? I do, I do!

Let me introduce you to an oldie, but a goodie. From way back in the day when 3D graphics were improving so quickly, by the time a game was released, the style was already obsolete.

Actually that's probably still true today.

In a 3D game industry saturated with guns, trade in that burned out pistol and rifle for a salt shaker and skillet.

Welcome to Restaurant Empire!

title.png

Overview

This is a typical tycoon type Sim game, where you get to manage the sophisticated financial operations of running multiple restaurants at once.

Your famous chef uncle starts off wanting to retire, so he leaves you his restaurant to manage on your own. Over time, you learn that as the business becomes more popular, it also becomes more complicated to run.

Hire staff, increase wages to boost morale, organize a menu, change prices, improve the layout of the dining room, redecorate the bathrooms, improve the curb appeal, shop for new ingredients, compete in chef competitions, and so much more.

loading.png

Campaign Mode

In the campaign mode, there is a story that links together a set of several scenario missions.

In the first scenario you learn how to manage a new restaurant on your own. Your goals is to start making some money and build up your reputation.

In later scenarios, you'll only have a few months (each month is a 24 hour simulated day) to achieve harder challenges, such as improving a new restaurant into a 4 star rating.

In later game, you'll have to compete in Chef competitions, and win first place by preparing a surprise dish in a all three of the main cuisine styles (French, Italian, American).

michel.png

Between all of the scenarios, you get to interact with many of the key story characters such as your uncle Michel, the Mob Boss Don Corleone, and the grocery owner Delia Delecoeur.

Sometimes key characters jump in mid-scenario to introduce you to new chefs for you to hire, offer new recipes, or make your life more difficult by asking you to complete additional challenges before the scenario time runs out.

goals.png

Together, they will guide Armand LeBoeuf to wage a competitive financial war against OmniFood, an evil organization shutting down quality food centers across the world by selling inferior/cheaper food alternatives. To do this, Armand must become a successful restaurateur, opening popular new restaurants in various major cities around the world.

Sandbox Mode

monthly financials.png

The sandbox mode can be a fun way to explore the game when first getting started.

For instance, if you want to unlock all of the possible recipes in the game, or experiment with various restaurant layout styles to make maximum profit, the sandbox is a good place to attempt that goal. As I recall, there are also some cheat options to increase your funds or master a recipe.

However, learning which recipes are the going to be the most popular, and what prices they should be set to, I find that to be always an ongoing daily challenge. This is where I spend most of my time balancing the books at the end of each in-game day.

menu.png

Everything is always in flux! No two restaurants are alike.

A 3-star restaurant in Paris might be able to sell a ton of Cinnamon Rolls for top dollar, while in Rome they would rather eat the gum scrapped of my shoe than be forced to try a free Cinnamon Roll. And in the campaign mode, customers might love recipes that customers hate in the Sandbox.

Obviously, there is some sort of randomizer that influences the Sandbox to balance customer appetites differently.

Sim Everything!

Fans of games like The Sims, Sim City, and Tycoon style sim games should fall right at home with this game.

curb appeal.png

Explore a moving city, with walking pedestrians and moving cars. Find out where most of the city traffic is heading to locate the most popular venues. Not exactly the most important feature in the game, but it's there, and I think that is a pretty cool perk to explore the surroundings just for fun.

Layered sound effects for moving cars and murmuring people makes it all the more immersive. And inside the restaurant, there isn't a cup, dish, or fork that lands on a table without me hearing it the moment a Sim animation sets anything down.

dishwasher.png

On the inside of every building, you can move every appliance and furniture item, including room placement, lights, decorations, stoves, and sinks.

reviews.png

No Sim can be controlled directly. Staff will move on their own routes to various locations to do their job.

Customers will look for available seats to dine in, and then they will search for the restrooms when finished.

A poor floor arrangement will cause frequent collisions with customers, slowing down food deliveries, ultimately leading to bad Yelp reviews. Bad reviews can reduce the star rating of restaurant, and reduce the number of customers walking in.

Follow Your Sims

eating.png

What Sim game would be complete without a proper stalker feature?

In a true 3D world, the camera options allow for full 360 rotation, zoom in and out, and up and down tilt. Move up close like the invisible man, or fly way above the city and enjoy a God's Eye view of the metropolis. Jump immediately back inside any restaurant by simply hitting the spacebar.

You can spy on every staff and customer throughout the day to see what they are doing at any given moment. Yes, even watch them while they take a bathroom break (for the pervert stalkers).

Seriously though, the game designers went to extraordinary lengths to provide as much detail as possible on Sim behaviors.

recipe.png

My favorite little perk in this game is the recipe illustrations.

Each recipe has custom drawn image. Not only does the illustration appear in my recipe list (with a zoom picture option), but it will also appear on the plate of every customer who orders it. And with the ingredient list on the side if every recipe, I suppose you could even attempt to prepare the item in real life.

A cheap game designer might have used the same texture for half the menu, but not in this game. No recipe texture is ever repeated, because they clearly cared about quality food in this game!

tasks.png

Keep an eye on your chefs. You might have 30 orders in the queue, and find out one of your chefs is twiddling his thumbs with nothing to do, while the other is struggling to keep up with all the work. Assign some more menu items to the lazy chef to help spread out the workload, and get food orders out more quickly to customers who will not wait around forever.

In a cramped kitchen with too much staff, a chef might have difficulty reaching the stove because there are too many obstacles blocking the way. Make the kitchen larger, move counters out of the way, or remove some staff to help free a blocked Sim.

oven.png

Chefs need access to the oven, stove, blender, microwave, and grill to cook all the various recipes. Unfortunately, only one chef can use a cooking tool at a time, so it is your job to make sure there is sufficient equipment available inside the limited space for chefs to share.

Strategy / Tips

Every square foot added to the kitchen is costly. A bigger kitchen means less real estate offered to the dining room where additional tables could alternatively be placed to serve more customers.

Honestly though, after playing this game over the years, the best way to run a restaurant successfully in this game is to have as few dining room tables as possible. Less costs, less staff, and more space to serve customers on time. Never allow a customer to leave without paying their check!

In a 5-star restaurant, when a dozen customers a day order a $50 meal, it will put you in profit mode fast, whereas a room full of angry/hungry customers who can't even get $2 cold tater tots on the table is not always worth the consequences. They'll ask for their money back, leaves bad reviews, and you'll be stuck footing the bill for the wasted food that never made it out on time.

Staff wages have to be adjusted often based on their morale level, so pay attention to keep the service levels high. Morale goes down when the restaurant fails to pull a profit for the day. Morale goes up when profits are made. So always try to stay in profit mode for every restaurant. The staff will be so happy making tips, they will be willing to work for next to nothing.

Conclusion

rating.png

It is not often that I play a PC game almost 20 years old, and still enjoy it after years of dust piling up on it.

To me, this game does not feel like I have to grind anything. The coffee is always served freshly ground. 😋

The jazzy, funky music could play forever on loop, and it immerses me into a realm I could sit and chill in for hours. The tutorial is fully voiced with an entertaining voice actor who sounds like a vacation infomercial. Even after learning the gameplay, I still enjoy listening to the tutorial for entertainment value.

I've never played a restaurant game that compares to this one. It is the gold standard of restaurant Sims, although Chef on Steam, is very similar, but I do not like chibi style Sims so much, or (strangly) the modern engine style. It's like trading in an heirloom chef's knife for a cheaper modern knock-off.

So check out Restaurant Empire if you want to try out a Sim game unlike anything else you've tried before. I purchased it years ago online from Big Fish Games (an online game store, similar to Steam). Nowadays, you can still find physical copies of the game for sale on Amazon (just make sure you computer has a CD or DVD player to install it), or you can try to snag a digital copy from the darker recesses of the internet.

The good news is that the awesome sequel Restaurant Empire II is available for download on Steam, and this game runs on the exact same game engine, and includes a different campaign with additional recipes, cuisines, furniture, and all kinds of bonus content. In the sequel, you get to add learning the art of mixing custom coffee drinks, as well as alcoholic cocktails to your repertoire of chef skills.

coffee.png


Source: https://restaurantempire.fandom.com/wiki/Restaurant_Empire

Screenshots compiled by @creativetruth from my actual gameplay.

Post Beneficiaries:

This is my way of thanking each of you for your friendship and support. By sharing my talents on Hive, I can also share to help with your needs.

Let my success also grant you some happiness too.

#restaurant-empire #tycoon #simulation #the-sims #game #pc-game #strategy-game #sandbox-game #sandbox #screenshots #3D #3D-game

CreativeTruth.png



0
0
0.000
3 comments
avatar

It seems so complicated but fun to play that game @creativetruth :D
I played SIMs before and I did get bored from it but not that type of simulation game though I guess because it feels different than what I am accustomed myself of playing before.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Yes, this game certainly appeals more to players who enjoy strategy planning and a world that carries on its own you can quietly watch.

Probably would feel boring for players who enjoy being in the middle of the action and slugging it out with their opponents.

It would certainly make the game feel more like Grand Theft Auto if they allowed for a few mob missions around the town to add some action and danger. It would be the best of both worlds.

0
0
0.000
avatar

You might like this game "factorio" - going look this game up you reviewed also - looks good - i like sims too - thanks!

0
0
0.000