Hero

Re: Dine out, is it worth it?

@PugLove888 @staceylthompson I just went into a save where I had made the huge penthouse into a restaurant, but nobody owns it, so the game is running it. There are many 'distracting' features for customers on the lot - dancing, swimming, karaoke, piano, bars, tv, gaming, etc. Although there were others on the lot that were doing these activities rather than eating, in both of my tests I had no issues with my Sims being distracted by them.

In my first test I had the couple go there on a date. (They are married)

They arrived at the restaurant fine and the male requested a table at the hosting station. They were seated fine.
He ordered for both of them and the first course ordered came fine.
The only slight glitch was that three of the waitresses were there chatting with them when I went to have him order the 2nd course, and when I ended that chat they left and the couple stood up by the table. Then I clicked the table and had him order the 2nd course. They both sat down automatically and he ordered it and it arrived just fine.
When they were finished I clicked the table and chose to end the meal and pay the bill.
I got the message that the bill was paid, and sent them home. All as expected.
I exited the game without saving then used the same couple for my second test.

In my second test I had the couple go there by having the man just choose to travel and choosing his wife to travel with him.

They arrived at the restaurant fine and the male requested a table at the hosting station. They were seated fine.
He ordered for both of them - only one main course this time, which ordered came fine. Note: They were chatting, so to move things along and get him to order quickly I exited the autonomous chat they were having so the queued ordering came up faster.
When they were finished I clicked the table and chose to end the meal and pay the bill.
I got the message that the bill was paid, and sent them home. All as expected.

So... in my tests of how it's working currently I saw no issues except maybe that tiny glitch, but that was very minor and maybe nothing. If you are interested in having Dine Out for the ability to go out to eat, I think you will enjoy it. I enjoy the pack, though it has had some bugginess when running the restaurant here and there over time. Even then I was able to work around the issues and didn't find them to be anything that stopped me from being able to enjoy the pack. If you want it for dates and eating out, or to own a restaurant, I would recommend it, personally. 🙌

8 Replies

PugLove888
Hero
5 years ago
@SheriGR, thank you for your thorough test of the dinning features in this pack! 🙌🤓❤️ I'm so glad to see that having your Sims eat at a restaurant worked almost perfectly! 🥳 Perhaps they fixed the dinning bugs that people were mentioning several months ago?!? 🤔 Either way, It is goo do know and hopefully this will help @staceylthompson to make an informed decision on whether to get Dinning Out! 😇
SheriGR
Hero
5 years ago
@PugLove888 Yes, I think you're right. I think I noticed that several of the Dine Out bugs were recently fixed. Yay for that!! 🙌 So... @staceylthompson I hope you'll have as much fun as I do dining out with your sims and owning/running restaurants!! 🙂
chanelabelle
5 years ago
I am having major issues running my restaurant. I researched all the possible fixes to no avail. This started yesterday randomly.
My host is taking forever to seat customers, the customers keep getting up from their table and wondering around and the cooks never serve the food into the window.
These are issues I saw people complain about in threads from years ago. I just purchased this pack recently.
Any insight on this? Its not fun anymore because I can't even play the owning the restaurant feature.
SheriGR
Hero
5 years ago
@chanelabelle
How long has this been happening / when did it begin? Were you running the restaurant previously with no issues?
Please try repositioning the chef station making sure there's plenty of room to access the area the waiters grab the food from (and where the chef lays out the covered platter). Can you include screenshots of the area?
If that doesn't help, you could upload it to the gallery and let me know here the exact name you gave it and if your name is different there, and I could try it in my game.
If you want to see if the issue may be the particular restaurant, I have a restaurant I uploaded within the last couple of weeks, and tested before running, and it was having no issues. You could try downloading it and see if your sims have the same issues on that lot. https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/7EE5665EC98011EA8BF5C9AC8BDFCA94
Also, is the restaurant Maxis made, from the gallery, or one you made? Is it possible it contains any Custom Content. Also, do you have any Mods or CC in your game, or have you in the past?
chanelabelle
5 years ago
@SheriGR I previously ran a restaurant that I uploaded from the gallery. It worked fine. Got it up to 5 stars then it dropped to 4.5 because of some of these issues.
I loved the restaurant I uploaded but I wanted to create one on my own. So I did, from the ground up. The moment I hired staff and tried to open, I noticed all of these issues.
I made the restaurant myself. You can find it under "Lofty Brick Tavern." I have no mods on the game. I only use cheat codes but thats it.
SheriGR
Hero
5 years ago
@chanelabelle Your restaurant is cute! I found that the chef would cook and cook showing invisible pans and chopping invisible food:

I then did some testing and found that while using MOO you must have accidentally placed a second copy of two of the cooking stations over top of the first copy of each food station. To fix this please do the following:

With MOO off, in build mode grab the cooking station and drag it toward you. Not click delete (then delete it from Household inventory) or drag it to 'sell'.

Next, do the same thing for the cooking station next to it:

The third cooking station is fine as-is.

As far as customers getting up a lot in your restaurant, a few things that can help this are:
Lock that kitchen door to everyone but employees and household. Otherwise Sim customers will head in there and can be in the way or not doing what they should.
Welcome and check up on customers. Make sure their food gets to them in a good amount of time and that your staff is not over-worked or expected to cook things out of their skill rang at the time. Keep the area clean.
If you have interesting items to look at or interact with on the lot, customers will sometimes want to check them out.
If your environment score is high customers seem to like to relax and soak it in.
Your chairs at the tables have a comfort score of "1", yet your bar stools have a score of "6". Whether or not they sit on the stools (they cannot eat/be served there), these stools may be distracting them. You may want to use the money you get from selling those two cook stations to add chairs with a higher comfort rating at the tables?
Once the food prep is working correctly this should help with their satisfaction... and maybe even their settling in (wondering around). That may have been effecting things even - maybe even earlier in their visit than you would think?
I hope this helps!
chanelabelle
5 years ago
@SheriGR thanks so much!! I have no clue how duplicate cooking stations got there. Thats odd. Thanks for the tips. The kitchen door is locked so I never have them wondering around there they just wonder around the restaurant or go outside. I will definitely update the chairs. Thanks again! 🙂
SheriGR
Hero
5 years ago
@chanelabelle Happy to help! I have had that happen to me (where I accidentally had two cupboards, one on top of the other). When placing and building things with MOO active it's something you have to watch for, and is surprisingly easy to have happen.
That tip about locking the kitchen door and other things I learned the hard way &/or as I ran my restaurants are included on the page I linked to in a previous comment on this thread, if you want to check and see if there's anything there that you hadn't run into yet: https://sherigr.com/gameplay-tips/restaurants-in-sims-4/
Have fun with your restaurant... it's super cute! 🙌