Part 2: But thou must give me \$10,000

Episode 2: But thou must give me $10,000

Sweetie, I'm home!

Del, I'm right here in the kitchen!



We're back in the LeBoeuf household, and now we're choosing dialogue options for Delia! As opposed to Armand, where you generally have the choice between a positive, neutral and negative response, all of Delia's options are variations on "oh, Armand, let me tell you how wonderful you are!"

Mmm… smells great in here sweetie… what're you cooking?

Only my world-famous Delia Wellington. I thought you'd get a kick out of it.

That's very cute hon. You always knew how to pull my heartstrings.

Oh yes I remember, I have something important to tell you. And you may want to pull a chair out for this one cause I've got some pretty big news…



I mean, come on, what is even the point of making me choose between these three?

Well, c'mon hon, your getting me all worked up here.

…a TV producer stopped by the restaurant the other day, and he offered me to do my own TV show.



Well, guess what? I told him yes! You, my dear wife, are now husband to a future celebrity chef!


What? Uh, Armand, I don't think you worded that right.

Oh wow, congratulations! I'm so happy for you!

Be happy for the both of us. Just imagine the opportunities this TV gig will open for us…

So how about you? How was the café today?

It's doing better by the day I guess. Customers seem to like the place. And we've hit our targets for last month or so, so everything seems to be going well enough, although…

Although what?



Oh, my bad, Delia's dialogue options aren't solely praise for Armand, the game also forces me to have her complain about how running a café is so haaard and boooring.

Oh nothing really, I just thought it was going to be… more. You know what I mean?

Yeah I guess I know how you feel. But then that's the thing about coffee shops, you know? They usually just cater to a smaller clientele, and patrons are usually recurring customers.

I know. And that's especially true for traditional cafés. I just thought I could do more with it, that's all…

I'm sure business will pick up some more once word-of-mouth spreads. In the meantime, why don't you try to establish a sister café? I mean the Delia's First Coffee Shop is doing well enough on its own anyway. Now you have some more free time to build another one…

Well, I have been scouting this old property in my home town in LA, and I think the location would be perfect for a mainstream café… plus I've always wanted to build one over there anyway… but, I don't know… don't you think it's a little too soon though?

Right now is as good a time as any in my opinion.

Hmm I guess I could give it a shot…

Wait a sec… hmm… what made you so supportive of this whole coffee shop thing all of a sudden?

Well, you know, I just see that this makes you happy. You get to do something that you feel proud of and I think that's great. Plus you're doing a great job. Just remember though that this is still a business. I know how much you love doing this, but you always have to keep the business end in mind.

You know what? I think I will do that second café. Thanks hon, you're best!

Now about that Fish Wellington…



Well, with Armand's encouragement, Delia has now moved to LA to set up a new modern coffee shop. But before we take a look at our new place, let's go back to Delia's First Coffee Shop, which has been fully renovated with the help of our goon consultants in the thread!



Joke's on you guys, though, as the place actually looks better than before! Bit too HGTV, but I'll take that over the hunter green tiled carpet.



I have also updated the menu with everyone's requests. I have honoured the request for all prices to be in whole dollars, but I'm still going to be setting the prices myself (as that's the main way I have of actually playing the game!)

Our menu at Delia's First Coffee Shop is now as follows:

Hot coffee

Café vanilla - $9
Cappuccino - $5

Iced coffee

Iced espresso - $8
Iced cappucinno [sic] - $6
Almond iced coffee - $8

Tea

English breakfast tea - $6
Lemon tea - $5

Other drinks

Watermelon slush - $8
Pink perfection juice - $10

Food

BLT sandwich - $13
Chocolate biscotti - $9
Apple croissant - $6
Mixed fruit Danish - $13
Salad Niçoise - $13



As requested, I've reduced the quality of the English breakfast tea as much as I can (to spite the English). It has a quality rating of 34% now, making it by a wide margin the worst thing on our menu. The quality of the leaves is now half a star, which I'm pretty sure means that they're just random leaves that Delia scoops out of the gutter.



We have three main objectives this mission. The first is to increase the food rating at Delia's First Coffee Shop to 2.8, which should hopefully be OK, even though that tea's going to be a problem if a lot of people order it. Next, our Restaurant group as a whole needs to make $100,000 in monthly revenue (easy, we made $173,000 in revenue last month). Finally, we have to visit the TV studio! So let's get that done right away.



Armand, over here!



How are you feeling today, everything good?

I'm great George. The place looks nice by the way… though it's a wee bit smaller than what I'd imagine it to be…

Yes, it's always the first thing that people mention during their first time on the lot. But with the right tweaking of the lens and some proper framing, the audience won't be able to tell the difference even if they squint.

Don't let the stage size fool you, Armand. We have everything you'll ever need in a kitchen prepared for you right here – with all the equipment and tools to your specification. You'll feel right at home here I'd wager.

Well, I bet you have a ton of questions on your mind. C'mon Armand, ask me anything.


"I won’t have to do any terrible minigames, will I?"

So what are we doing today exactly?

Well today we're just doing rehearsals. You know, just to make sure everything is working as it should and everybody's on the same page. We don’t start shooting in about a month still.

Actually, we've just finished setting up the stage. If you'd like, you could try out the equipment now, just so you know your way around the kitchen. How about it?

Yeah sure, I'll give it a try.

You heard the man. Let's set up the lights!



Fuck.

So, for Restaurant Empire 2, they updated the engine to add this exciting, wholly original minigame! I really suck at Bejeweled clones, but luckily this version is incredibly easy, and they give you a ton of time to solve it, so it's not too bad.



We did a great show!



And the game just unceremoniously kicks us out. Well, whatever. Let's check out that new coffee shop!



This is our new café, Delacourt Sunset. The décor in here is already much better than the options we had in our old Parisian coffee shop! I don't know if I should be playing chess on the walls or reversi on the carpet. This place clearly has potential!



As usual, I set up some table sets and a temporary menu. I'm pretty sure I've sat in that exact chair at one point.

Along with the new restaurant, the game also gives us a couple of new recipes, which I have listed below.









I also bought this one off a customer. None of the recipes are terribly exciting in gameplay terms. The best is probably the café chocomalt, which has amazing profitability for an iced coffee. It's got a good quality rating too, despite being made almost entirely out of the malt balls inside of Maltesers along with a single tablespoon of chocolate ice cream.

I soon get called over by a customer back at Delia's First Coffee Shop



Hi Delia! I must say I love what you've done to the place. Traditional cafés aren't very much in vogue these days. This place is definitely a nice breath of fresh air…

Well aren't you a sweetheart? Here, I'll get you another dessert. It's on the house!

Aww sweetie, that's just too sweet of you…

Hey you want in on a little secret? I think I know just the thing to make this place even better.

Sure, I'm always interested in secrets…

I know this quaint little place that sells high-grade Colombian coffee beans. It's new here in town and it sells the best coffee I've ever tasted in my life. My boyfriend George can attest to it.

Here let me give you the address…

Wow Steph, this is great. Thanks a lot!


A lead on some better ingredients? Let's check it out!



Bonjour Monsieur.

Hallo Mademoiselle! How may I help you today?

A good friend of mine, Stephanie Lumet, recommended your shop to me Monsieur. She told me your shop imported the quality Colombian beans?

Oui, oui, Ms. Lumet, yes! She comes here often. However, they are not just quality Colombian coffee beans as you describe them Mademoiselle. These are some of the best beans exported by the Eje cafetero Colombiano.

Oh, I see. But please Monsieur, call me Delia.

Actually, I'm here to look for a better supply of coffee beans for my new café across town.

A new café? Hmm… Delia you say? Wait, would that café be the Delia's First Coffee Shop near Rue Lafitte?


It kills me that the game's characters are actually using the incredibly clunky name of "Delia's First Coffee Shop" to refer to the café, and that no one ever comments on what a stupid name it is.

Yes, it is.

Ah! Then you must be Monsieur Armand Lebouf's spouse, yes?

I would be her, yes.

Ah excellent! You see, Ms. Lebouf, I once studied with your husband during his earlier years in the culinary arts. I never did finish the course, and he most likely doesn't remember me now.

But I could see even then that he was different from the rest of us. He had an innate talent for cooking and I knew then he was destined for great things. As you can probably tell, I'm a very big fan of your husband.

Well, I'm rambling now aren't I? But please, you're here to order a supply of coffee yes?

That's right Monsieur.

Please, call me Laurent. Well, I don't usually supply coffee shops in your area. But for you, Ms. Lebouf, I'll make a special exception. How does 10000 for 5 sacks sound to you?



$10,000? That sounds pretty ridiculous.

It's a little pricey for me. Can I ask you for a discount?

I'm afraid not Ms. Delia, it's the standard quote I give to all my customers. I actually don't deliver my goods to your area because it's so expensive to do so.

However, I'm willing to make an exception this time, just for you. So if you look at it in a different way, I'm already giving you a discount, Madame.

I'll need to think about it.

Very well, Ms. Lebouf. If you decide to change your mind, please come back again.



Oh. Well, why even give me those other options, then?


Sounds good to me.

Good then. It was very nice doing business with you, Ms. Lebouf.



To be fair, though, this is an offer that you absolutely should not pass up. Rather than giving us "5 sacks", paying him actually unlocks him as a wholesaler for coffee beans, decaf coffee beans and soy coffee beans. Since those go in nearly everything we sell at our coffee shops, that's a huge deal that'll increase the quality of our menu significantly.



Here's something new that they added in Restaurant Empire 2. Whenever you get one of these rambling guests whose dialogue can't be contained in a single box, you know that they're going to offer you something really stupid.



She wants to sell us membership at a local fitness club for the low, low price of $35,000! And it's not for us – the idea is that we'll give the membership to a member of staff to boost their morale, because we're such a great and caring employer!

, our employees are all replaceable minimum wage peons.



No! It's happening again!



This is just the game rubbing in the fact that I can't wring money out of my guests with overpriced wine at my coffee shops. Now my guests are doing it to me! This game is like an ironic punishment for the way I played Restaurant Empire 1.



A bit later in the day, I buy… what the fuck is this?



I also buy this recipe for blueberry muffins. Not a very good recipe, but at least they don't look like the radioactive ooze from the Ninja Turtles cartoon like the lavender tea.



We get to the end of the month, and yikes, we are far away from that food rating goal. If things don't get significantly better next month, I might have to step in and take measures.



Second month, and no real progress has been made.

To fix things, I'm going to temporarily bring Delia back to Delia's First Coffee Shop and bump all the low quality recipes from the menu. Hopefully that should do it.



The strategy seems to be paying off, as Delia has already become a skilled chef/barista. This salad Niçoise she's making has a base recipe quality of 53%, but because of her cooking skill that's getting boosted all the way up to 69%, or about 3.4 on the scale used for the mission objectives.



In the end, Delia smashes the objective with an overall score of 3.19. Now that that's over with, I've transferred her back to Delacourt Sunset and put all the awful recipes back on the menu.

Next mission, we'll be setting up our snazzy new modern restaurant!




Here are the wall, floor and table options for our new modern café.



These are the additional decorations. It's pretty bad when the lamps are more interesting than the decorations. We should be able to do something with the giant coffee poster and the planks (?) on the wall, though.

Thread poll: what décor should we have in Delacourt Sunset?

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.