PlateUp! Run the kitchen your way

You start with a bare room, a couple of tables, and a basic stove. Between shifts you buy blueprints, shuffle counters and ovens wherever you want, and rethink the whole flow. Put the sink in the corner so pizza dough takes fewer steps. Save for a conveyor, then a grabber, then a mixer that chops while you run plates. Keep going and dirty dishes rinse themselves while food rides belts to the pass. Watching courses finish without a hand touching them is a highlight.

Each day customers arrive, read the menu, wait, and lose patience if you dawdle. You seat them, take orders, cook, plate, deliver, and clear. Soups bubble over, floors get dirty and slow you down, hobs catch if you look away. One walkout ends the run, so the pressure climbs as more tables fill. You learn steak timing, pie prep, salad orders by doing them badly first. The loop is forgiving that way: fail, adjust the layout, and try again sharper.

You curate the menu from mains, sides, sauces, toppings, starters, and desserts, from pies and steaks to soups and salads. Every few days you pick a card that changes the rules and raises the stakes. Then you dress the room to match: art, wallpaper, fancy cloth tables that pay extra, metal tables where sides turn optional but guests get twitchy. Go gourmet dining with a friend as maitre d, or run a fast-food franchise tuned for speed. Every location is procedurally generated, with its own climate, customers, and conditions.

In a good service you split like a well-oiled machine, one on dishes, one on front-of-house, two on the pass. Solo runs work too, especially once automation takes over the boring jobs.