Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!

Overview

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! is a restaurant simulation game developed and originally published by Vertigo Gaming for PC in 2017. As the sequel to the original Cook, Serve, Delicious!, the player is cast as the successful proprietor of the eponymous restaurant from the first game. However, an embezzlement scheme perpetrated by the owners of SherriSoda Tower leads to the bankruptcy and closure of most of the tower's resident businesses, including the player's restaurant. After buying new commercial space inside the massive Teragon Supertower, players must rebuild their restaurant from the ground up into the prestigious five-star eatery it once was.

Gameplay

Like the original Cook, Serve, Delicious!, the sequel's core gameplay revolves around managing a busy restaurant over the course of an entire day. Although the main focus is on preparing food, players must also handle sanitation-related tasks such as washing dishes, cleaning toilets and taking out the garbage. One daily shift begins at 6:50 AM and ends at 10 PM, with lunch and dinner "rushes" occurring at 12 PM and 6 PM respectively; the in-game clock moves at a highly accelerated rate compared to real time.

CSD2 supports console-style gamepad controllers in addition to standard mouse and keyboard options.

Prep Stations

Several Prep Stations, represented by a row of numbered tabs, are displayed along the left edge of the gameplay screen. When a customer places an order, their order ticket appears next to one of the available Prep Station tabs as an image showing the type of food ordered. Players can select a new order ticket to begin preparation of the order; this opens the Prep Station menu displaying the food item or its basic ingredients. Kitchen equipment such as plates, pans, deep fryers or flat-top grills may also be shown when required for certain recipes.

Inside the Prep Station menu, the actual preparation and assembly of ingredients takes place by selecting the correct recipe options displayed in the right-hand window. Once the initial prep work is finished, pressing Enter will either serve the order immediately or begin cooking it, depending on the dish. Although certain recipes have steps that must always be performed (such as filleting a Fish), many types of food have several different preparation or ingredient customization options; for example, a customer's Corn Dog order may specify the addition of mustard, ketchup, both or neither. The specific details of an order are shown in a ticket window at the bottom of the Prep Station menu.

Most kinds of food must be allowed to fully cook before serving, as indicated by a timer icon on the order ticket. Once the cooking timer is complete, the food is usually ready to serve and its order ticket must be selected again to remove it from the heat source before it burns. However, some of the more complex foods (especially those with meat as an ingredient) begin with an extra preparation step before cooking, after which the ticket must be selected again to complete the final preparation steps prior to serving.

Patience, Ratings & Chores

Once an order is placed, players only have a limited amount of time in which to assemble and serve the requested food item before the customer loses their patience and leaves the restaurant; this is represented by their order ticket slowly sliding off of the screen.

Depending on the accuracy of the finished order's ingredient placement and whether the food was fully cooked, the player will receive a "Perfect," "Average" or "Bad" rating. Perfect orders are obviously the most desirable and increase customer traffic and revenue. Average orders have no positive or negative effect, and Bad orders drive away customers. If an order is not filled before its ticket disappears from the Prep Station tab, or if the food is burnt during cooking, the order is automatically rated Bad.

Cleaning chores periodically appear on the Prep Station tabs as work tickets right alongside customer orders. These tasks are completed in the same way as standard food orders, but their wait timers elapse more quickly. Failing to complete a cleaning task earns an automatic "Sick" rating and a substantial decrease in customers.

Holding Stations

Holding Stations ("HS") are displayed at the top of the gameplay screen. A new mechanical addition to CSD2, these auxiliary prep stations are used to make large batches of dishes or ingredients in advance.

Certain foods require the use of Holding Stations during prep, which are indicated by a red "HS" icon, while others are considered "Holding Station-optional" as indicated by a yellow "HS" icon. If the daily menu contains any foods that are HS-required or HS-optional, time will be paused during a "pre-open" phase before the shift begins, giving players a chance to begin prepping their first dish of the day at a Holding Station. As an added convenience, any dishes prepped at a Holding Station that require cooking are automatically removed from the heat source once the cooking timer has finished.

Effective use of Holding Stations can help make lunch and dinner rushes more manageable, especially when combined with recipes that require little or no additional prep work. For example, once a batch of Pretzels has been fully cooked at a Holding Station, they can be served immediately simply by selecting a customer's Pretzel order in the Prep Station tabs; no further steps are required.

Holding Station foods have a limited serving life and must eventually be disposed of once they lose their freshness.

Food Types

All recipes are now split into three main categories: Entrees, Side Dishes and Drinks. Entrees are the restaurant's main source of income and make up the majority of order tickets. Side Dishes can only be prepped in Holding Stations and are never ordered on their own; instead, Sides are ordered automatically alongside Entrees, with the added effect of increasing customers' patience. Drinks are similarly ordered along with Entrees and require regular attention via order tickets to continue serving them, such as refilling the ice dispenser for a Soda machine.

Entrees served perfectly along with a Side Dish and a Drink will receive an extra "Delicious" bonus.

Modes

Players begin the campaign with a small amount of cash, a sparsely furnished restaurant and a handful of basic recipes. Completing shifts earns the player more money for purchasing new recipes, as well as "YUM points" towards their character's next level-up. Leveling up confers several benefits, including bonus recipes and new decorative options for the player's restaurant. More Prep and Holding Stations are also added to the player's kitchen as they gain levels.

Selecting "Cook, Serve, Delicious!" from the Tower menu allows players to customize their restaurant's daily menu offerings, which must always contain at least three Entrees. Once the daily menu has been confirmed, the shift begins and a list of Bonus Objectives is displayed; completing these optional objectives will unlock new items.

Aside from players managing their own restaurant, a large number of "Chef for Hire" levels are available by selecting any of the other restaurants from the Tower menu. Each restaurant follows a general culinary theme, including ethnic cuisine such as traditional Italian, Japanese or Chinese foods. Selecting one of these restaurants displays a number of different daily shifts that can be worked, each with their own fixed menu offerings.

The income earned from a single Chef for Hire shift is typically much less than what players would earn working at their own restaurant. However, they can also earn Bronze, Silver and Gold Medals during these shifts by making Perfect orders while avoiding too many Average or Bad orders. Leveling up will eventually unlock additional restaurants and shifts for play.

Trivia

Leading up the launch of Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!, the developer Chubigans broadcast some of the programming of Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! live on Twitch in the form of programming streams. The archives of which can be found on the developer's YouTube channel.