Does the caterer work at all?

Hmmm. Nothing? Party starts, caterer comes, finds kitchen, starts cooking? I actually don't pay much attention to the service sims, because I'm too busy getting everyone to listen to the same music or some task like that...

I remade the gym in Willow Creek as a wedding/reception hall. Stove/fridge/counters with a bunch of dinner tables downstairs and a microphone. Upstairs is bar, piano and restrooms. In the back yard is the wedding arch.

I have only had one party so far and I made one of the people in my household be the caterer but she didnt cook anything. When I would click on her and make her cook something the activity would show for a second on her action bar then disappear. I made one of my sims friends to be the bartender and she didnt make drinks. I hired someone to be the entertainer and it was an old man who showed up and he died because one of my guests started yelling at him.

I had a wedding and hired an insane sim as my caterer. (She was from another family I had been playing, that's how I know her personality) She actually DID cook something, but then she proceeded to party with the rest of wedding guests. She didn't even bake a wedding cake. I clicked on her and there was no option to tell her to work. I thought it was just because she's insane but it sounds like you had the same problem. I really feel that this option to direct your cater needs to be patched in. "Make a cake" "Make a meal" or maybe "FIRE" Something like that. If you're hiring someone to be your caterer, they should really CATER.

I've found the best thing to do if you get a caterer that doesn't do their task, but at the same time is keeping you from cooking, is to run interference with another household member. Have any household member (other than your cook) engage a queue of conversation actions and have your cook make that cake for the wedding, birthday, what-have-you.

Kind of ridiculous to have to resort to this, but the dignity of labor with EA's service sims has always been in question.

I wonder if the fact that the caterer also acts as a guest on the public lots is the culprit? Maybe the guest role takes precedence over the caterer role, and they just go around being a guest instead...

"Naydi;12994046" wrote:
I have had to figure out a workaround for a birthday party...The caterer won't bake a birthday cake, so I have my Sim bake her own cake and put it in inventory to keep the family from scarfing it up ahead of time. I have noticed that you have to tell the caterer what to prepare before they will start cooking. Are we remembering to specify the menu?

That's odd, maybe caterer's are really random? I've never had to tell them what to make. On fact, during one birthday party, a particularly zealous caterer made the birthday cake plus party size portions of caprese salad, mac n cheese, grilled cheese, and chilli. Then she started cleaning up after everyone. I hire her every go now.

They sometimes do and sometimes don't. I think it depends if they distracted or not. I don't usually like the food they make, like hamburger cake. Ewe. Lol.

So I make food first and then call up the party.

"rosehrtgirl;12993779" wrote:

"IceyJ;12992987" wrote:
I've never had a problem with the caterers, until the first time I decided to have a party with the goals disabled. Don't know if it's related, but that was the only time they didn't cook. They just socialized and partied like a regular guest. I also noticed she didn't have the "Caterer" label over her head.

How do you disable the goals. I didn't know you could do that.

I have found if you remove all food from the fridge and put it in the sims personal inventory the caterers will do their jobs majority of the time. And don't put any food out on the counters until the caterer and mixologist do their jobs. Guest will get in the way of the caterer and mixologist if their is food out on the counters.

Good point. I had forgotten about the party where my Sim was doing the cooking and guests kept running to the refrigerator for leftovers. The next party, when I hired a caterer, I cleaned out the refrig before everyone came over.

Well, mine always cook, bartend and entertain as they're supposed to. So it might be a bug...?