Part 15: Nice restaurant. For a CLOWN.
Episode 14: Nice restaurant. For a CLOWN.
You look particularly jolly today, Armand. I take it you've patched things up with the missus then?
Yes, with the help of 'Delia's Aqua' I was finally able to talk things over with her. We aired out all our differences, compromised and promised to be completely honest with each other from now on.I like how Armand says that they "compromised" and promised to be completely honest "with each other" even though Delia has never been anything but honest and faithful.
Now everything's back to how it was the first time. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your advice Klaus. I'm just glad things worked out for you… Speaking of which, our restaurants have been working out well lately. I think we would do well to continue with expansions just like the last time… I'm not so hot about it to be honest. We don't have a lot of those in the restaurant business, so I'm kinda skeptical. I'm going out on a limb here and guess you still have that TV show at the back of your mind don't you? I guess… I just don't want to get burned badly again Klaus. My heart can only take so much failure. I would prefer to take it slow. We have been taking it slow Armand. If we were being aggressive about it, we would've had our third theme restaurant months ago. I'm speaking to you as a friend now, Armand. I'm not going to let you down. If nothing else, we'll both get into big trouble if this whole thing goes up in flames. So what do you say? … I trust you Klaus and I trust your judgment. You helped me save my marriage and I guess that's always something… Alright, let's do this. Nice to hear it my friend. And I've got a cracking theme for our next restaurant as well. You ready for this? What is it? The rainforest. Think gourmet cooking in Tarzan's kingdom. You like? Works for me Klaus. Works for me…
A rainforest-themed restaurant? After seeing The Speed Trap, nothing surprises me anymore.
The interior is pretty boring, but we'll soon do something about that.
But first, let's have a look at the new and improved Delia's Aqua!
That is, if you DARE!
In the first place, only those who brave the treacherous waters of the hall of
Those who reach the perilous depths of Delia's Aqua will find themselves in a mysterious deep sea coral reef, being served mysterious recipes from our mysterious menu.
And then? You'll just have to be there!
Let's celebrate our wonderful renovation of Delia's Aqua by redoing the façade as well! Before…
And AFTER!
Gorgeous. Now what to do about the rainforest restaurant?
Unfortunately, the default layout and the starting decoration options aren't super interesting. It's also more "safari lodge" than actual rainforest. That'll get better once I get some furniture suppliers through the course of this mission.
For now, I'm thinking "severed heads and spiders".
The restaurant's cuisine is American. It's called the "Rain and Forest Grill", suggesting a traditional grill restaurant. However, the game can't actually control recipes more finely than by national cuisine, so nothing is stopping me by filling the restaurant's menu with the game's unusually high-quality American seafood dishes and ignoring grilled food entirely. I am not saying that that is what I am going to do, only that that is for sure what I am going to do.
Nothing like a breakfast of three pounds of fried potatoes, eaten while sitting on a cold, hard rock next to a severed head, eh, Abe?
Things are going quite well at the Rain and Forest Grill so far, but I feel like the restaurant could use a little more je ne sais quoi. Surely there must be a way for us to make it even more ridiculous. Let's go home and think about it, see if we get inspired somehow.
Hey hon. What're you workin on over there? What, this? Oh, it's nothing. Just my notes for a few recipes I'm trying out. Wow that's a lot of recipes you've got there…If you look closely, each sheet of paper has at most six giant lines of text on it. Armand must have a child's handwriting.
Oh, this is nothing. You should see what I have upstairs; I've got a whole box of them stored in the closet. Hey I have an idea, maybe we could compile some of these recipes of yours into a book, I've got a friend, Samantha, who works in the book publishing business. I'm sure she could help us out. I don't know Del, it took me a very long time to make these recipes perfect. I don't know if I can part with them that easily…
"Ninety-eight… no… ninety-nine teaspoons of cinnamon? No, it's still not quite right…" Well… how about we don't turn it into a cooking book and instead we do it as a coffee table book with some recipes included. It could look like a diary of your journey through world cuisine. You could write about the exotic foods you've tasted in your travels and the recipes you've created that were inspired by those. This way you don't need to list a lot of recipes that you don't want to reveal to the public. And I'm sure the market doesn't have a lot of these coffee table books about world cuisine from a renowned chef! Hmm… a picture book instead of a recipe book. That's an interesting idea. I could call Samantha and set up a meeting with her if you like. She and I go way back. Yeah hon. I like this idea. Let's do this.
SOoo… I wanted to talk to you about an idea of mine for the rainforest place… Sure, what about it? I thought that maybe we could take a more unconventional route with regards to the entertainment… Sounds good to me. What ya have in mind? The circus… our own small-scale circus act inside the restaurant. There's a popular circus outfit out in LA that does private gigs for local businesses and parties. They've been mostly coasting under the radar, but apparently they're quite good at what they do. I just thought that… I thought that maybe we could take a more unconventional route with regards to the entertainment… Exactly. Great idea, Armand. Keep me posted with that.
Of COURSE! It's not just a rainforest-themed American grill restaurant, it's a rainforest- and circus-themed American grill restaurant! Let's go to the circus!
Hi there, Mister. How may we help you today? … so I've seen your group's performance recently and I've got to admit that it's very impressive. I was hoping we could work together Mister Drake. I operate a rainforest themed restaurant in LA called… … the Rain and Forest Grill? I saw it in a magazines a few weeks ago. Pretty neat place you got there.The Rain and Forest Grill has been open for literally three hours.
Thanks. So as you know, we have a jungle theme there that I think jibes well with your troupe's show. Like I said, I'd like us to work together. And perhaps you know, this way, we get to enhance both our profiles. Wouldn't you agree? Mr. Lebouf, I have to be honest with you, although I'm sure your restaurant is a fine establishment, I can't really drag my group all the way across the Atlantic to have them work a permanent gig there. Most of us have families over here, and it really won't be fair to them if we just up and went to work in America. No offense Mr. Lebouf, your offer is very generous. I just don't think it can work out this way. None taken. Would you consider it if it was someplace in this country then? Here in LA perhaps? Are you serious? Sure I'd consider it… provided this hypothetical restaurant of yours is up to our standards of course. It will be… I guess that's settled then, I'll call you again once I've settled everything. You're a very driven man Mr. Lebouf; I'll give you that much. What can I say? I know what I want.
Oh, I guess the circus is in Munich! But didn't Armand say that the circus was in LA? At any rate, it looks like we won't get that rainforest- and circus-themed restaurant after all. But Armand hinted that we might set up another European restaurant – perhaps a Formula One/Circus restaurant? Be still my beating heart!
Back at the Rain and Forest Grill, things are going very well. Jack2142 posted an intriguing idea in the thread: what if we could
Surprisingly, I've had no complaints about this policy. The closest thing is the seven complaints about the level of noise. Guests typically complain about noise if other guests are eating too close to them (i.e. if tables are placed too close together), so it makes sense that seating strangers at the same table would induce the same complaints. Some of these troublemakers are also complaining that I forgot to build any restrooms. Typical entitled millennials.
Back at The Speed Trap (and I do apologise for bringing you back here), I happened to buy this fantastic German soup recipe off a customer. It's technically a little better than our beer soup recipe, but come on. I'm not replacing the beer soup.
For reference. It's half a can of hot Duff with a stick of butter and a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon. Perfection.
I also buy… wait, didn't we already have a banana split recipe?
Oh, my bad, this is clearly a "strawberry cheesecake boat", how silly of me!
Back at the Rain and Forest Grill, I buy this spicy chicken recipe. And let me tell you, this is not for the faint of heart. Watch out for that single red pepper!
At the end of the month, we're nowhere near our mission objectives. That's fine, though. Armand has gotten really good at German food, so I think I'll transfer him to our new restaurant since he's the only chef we have who's good at cooking American cuisine. That should help the food rating. As for satisfaction, that'll go up along with the food quality.
In the meantime, our recipe research finally pays off! This is our ultimate German appetizer, which I'll admit is a bit of a disappointment. 68% quality rating is pretty poor for an ultimate recipe, but I guess that's all you get for half a crayfish.
This is just excellent, on the other hand. Goulasch is delicious, and it's also extremely high-quality in game terms.
I expected something heartier for an ultimate German main course, but that's a hell of a quality rating! And as usual, I am extremely jealous of the prices that Armand is paying for luxury ingredients. In Restaurant Empire 1, he was paying $1.36 for a whole lobster, and now he's paying $1.77 for a 20 gram tin of caviar!
And our ultimate German dessert. I've never had Lebkuchen, so outside of the ingredient proportions being ridiculous I can't really comment.
We have also researched this incredibly good Italian soup.
And this excellent American main! As much as I'd like to make fun of Armand, apparently some people do put cinnamon in chilli.
A few months later (well, half a year), and we've accomplished two of the main objectives. But we also need to sort out Armand's book deal!
… So we're right there in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere basically, and all he could think about was: where are my pants!
Haha… that's a good one Del. It seems like you two really get along very well. Well we've had some rough times before. But we worked on it you know? Yeah gotcha. Sooo… let's talk about this book of yours. What's it about? Okay Sammy, here's our pitch: a coffee table cookbook by world renowned chef Armand Lebouf… prefaced of course by his lovely wife Delia Lebouf. Haha that's good Del. Go on. You know how all these famous chefs are releasing there own recipe books these days right? As long as you're somewhat famous or someone wanting to be famous you could just about release your own cookbook regardless of how good or bad your recipes really are. Well we're not going to compete in that market, Mands. Instead, we're pitching a picture book about the world's exotic foods that Armand's encountered during his travels around the world. This will include his insights into the cultures that originated them and how those experiences have shaped his cooking as well as the gourmet cooking world in general. The book, therefore, won't be heavy with Armand's recipes and will only include a few of them. It'll focus more on culture and bright pretty pictures of the exotic foods of the world. That's an intriguing idea right there. We don't have a lot of these coffee table books about food. And your husband's name will give the book a great deal legitimacy. We have been looking for a cool idea to fill out our table book portfolio…A vanity project coffee table book about food? I've never heard of anything so creative!
Hi hon. Oh, hello Miss… Oh hey Armand, this is Samantha, my publisher friend I was telling you about.
Nice to meet you Samantha. Same here Armand. Delia was just telling me about your book… So do we have something here Samantha? I think we have something here. Add to the fact that Del and I have been good friends for a very long time, I'm sure this relationship would work out well. I'd like to sign you guys to a first-look deal… Sounds good me. Armand? Glad to hear it, Samantha.
We have a book deal! Armand can now start telling people that he is an author~.
Let's celebrate by redoing the façade of The Speed Trap. I feel as if I've neglected the façades of our restaurants. Before…
And after! I love this restaurant. It's a shame that you definitely can't see that car from the ground, though.
It also occurs to me to repay the last of our debt. Now that we have several profitable restaurants, we are just raking in the money!
A triumph! Our restaurant portfolio is growing ever more ridiculous.
Now: what to do about the Rain and Forest Grill?
These are the wall, floor and table options for the Rain and Forest Grill. The shared large tables have worked out really well this mission, so I'm thinking that we'll stick with that. It means I'll have more space for decorations, and there's typically a better selection of large tables.
These are the wall- and floor-mounted decorations. They put in a bit more effort on these!
Thread poll: what décor should we have in the Rain and Forest Grill?
Vote on wall, floor and table design. For example, to vote for wall type C, floor type D and table type B, vote "CDB". The winning combination will be whatever has the most votes when I play the next mission. Also, let me know if you want me to add any of the floor or wall decorations.