Guide to put waiters in right startup positions

Are you frustrated with your waiters, because they always go to the wrong positions? Here I will introduce a way to 100% ensure your waiters are in correct positions. You don't need to do trial and error anymore, as you will understand the logic on the waiter placement and place them according to your will. This is very useful especially to people who are using island layouts, to ensure that the waiters won't go to the same island. (To understand what island layouts are, you can read IHOP UHOP's Guide to Island Layouts)

1. Waiters start next to one of the stoves.
Usually they will stand at the opposite position to the cook (i.e. in front of the stove). However if there are obstacles (tables, chairs, walls, etc) next to the stove, they will choose the position according to this priority:

One of the interesting thing here is that if the 7 squares next to the stove all have obstacles, the waiter will not appear in the restaurant. Therefore it is good to keep this priority in your mind when you place your stove.

2. The order of stoves, cooks & waiters are determined.
This maybe hard to understand, but this is the key thing for you to know where your waiters will be. Your 1st waiter & your 1st cook will stand next to your 1st stove, your 2nd waiter & your 2nd cook will stand next to your 2nd stove, and so on.

Here is an example:

This is my employee list. You can see I have numbered the cooks & the waiters from left to right. This is the orders for the cooks & the waiters.

The stoves are placed in order from left to right (with the method to be explained below). You can see that the waiters and the cooks are in the same order as they are on the employee list.

One thing to note here is that the order of the stoves is determined when you first load into RC, but the order will be messed up after you touched any of the stoves in the redecoration screen (this maybe a bug, but I don't think it is harmful enough to be fixed by playfish) Therefore in order to see the correct order, you always need to reload the page after you have made any changes to your layout.

3. Now you can find out the order of your stoves by understanding the order of your cooks. Since you know the order of your cooks from the employee list, and the order of the stoves is the same as the order of the cook next to them, so you can now find out the order of your stoves.

For example, I have this layout:

by comparing this with the employee list, I can number my cook:

The order of the stoves is the same as the order of the cook next to. So now if I want to make the stoves to be places like the one shown above, I can move them like this:

Save the game and reload the page and I will see them nicely ordered.


4. Now to make sure the waiters are placed correctly, you just need to place the corresponding stoves correctly. If you have 2 waiters, just need to make sure the 1st and the 2nd stoves are placed correctly.

For example, I want to make this 2 islands layout:

In order to make my 2 waiters separated in different islands, I just need to make sure that the 1st stove is put in one island, and the 2nd stove is put in the other.

I can find out the order of my stoves using the method above, and then place them like this:

Now after I save the game and reload the page, I can have my waiters correctly placed:

This is how you can ensure your waiters to be placed correctly. Even if in the future, people need to create a 3rd island for the 3rd waiter, this method will still can help to make the waiters placed in different islands, by putting the 1st, 2nd & 3rd stoves in different islands. Thanks for reading this guide, hope it can help you.

IHOP UHOP's Guide to Island Layouts

Introduction

If you are looking to make your restaurant as efficient as possible, then read on! This guide covers "island" layouts, which are, in my opinion, the most efficient restaurant layouts you can build.

You can begin using island layouts when you have a total of 6 staff. If you have less staff, please check out my General Guide to Efficient Restaurants.

**Disclaimer: island layouts are slightly buggy right now, so you will need to do a little bit of trial and error to get them right.**


What is an "island" layout?
If you've ever seen a restaurant that has two or more separate sections, or "islands", with its own cooks and waiters, then you've seen an example of an island layout. Here's one, as an example:

What's so special about island layouts?
Island layouts are unique in that they are extremely efficient. If you read the basic strategies in my Guide to Efficient Restaurants, you'll see that smaller restaurants (few cooks and tables) are always more efficient than bigger, bulkier restaurants. In a small restaurant, waiters don't have to walk as much to serve customers, while long walks are almost unavoidable for big restaurants.

The beauty of an island layout is that we can take that big, bulky restaurant and split it back down into those smaller, much more efficient chunks.


On Bugs and Problems
Unfortunately, island layouts are plagued with a host of problems. Without the right island set up, the game will get confused and repeatedly put all your waiters in one island or scatter them randomly. However, we can overcome all these problems.

**The next section will show you how to set up your island layout right so that it works correctly and consistently, without any of the problems.**


Island Building
Okay, so you're ready to go out and build your island layout! There is only one thing that you must do to get island layouts to work consistently. I don't know why it works, but if you do it right then you won't encounter any problems.

Check your waiters, swap your stoves
After you've completed your layout, go ahead and assign your waiters and cooks. The following two things can happen:

Possibility 1: Your waiters are in the right position:

Congratulations! Go ahead and Save & Close. If they're still in the right position when you reload the app, then you're done! Otherwise, please read on.

Possibility 2: Your waiters are in the wrong position:

Don't feel bad, this happens. What you need to do now is to go into the furniture view, and swap your stoves (I'm not kidding). Randomly take one of your stoves, and swap it with another one:

After each time, leave the furniture view and check to see if your waiters are now in the right positions. If not, keep going (this should only take 1-3 attempts). Otherwise, Save & Close, and if the waiters are still correct after you reload the app, then congratulations! You are done!

As long as you don't touch your stoves again, your waiters will always appear correctly and your restaurant will run at its peak efficiency.


Recommended Layouts
Here are recommended island layouts that have been tested and verified (I have confirmed that these are all 50 popularity layouts):

Note: The islands pictured here are deliberately placed far apart so that you can see them better. If you are lacking space, you can just squeeze the islands together without any problems. Click the "compact layout" link below each picture to get an idea of how it should look.

4 Cooks, 2 Waiters

[Avg. customers served per minute: 11.2]
(Don't have space? Try this compact layout instead)

5 Cooks, 2 Waiters

[Avg. customers served per minute: 14.6]
(Don't have space? Try this compact layout instead)

6 Cooks, 2 Waiters

[Avg. customers served per minute: 17.8]

Not enough space? Try this instead.

IHOP UHOP's Guide to Efficient Restaurant Layouts

Introduction

Hello! At the IHOP UHOP restaurant, we pride ourselves on squeezing every last gourmet point of out of our staff before they collapse from exhaustion! This guide will show you how to build efficient and effective restaurant layouts to maximize your bottom line!

Note: This guide only covers single "island" layouts, which are easier to build but not as efficient as multiple island layouts. If you're feeling adventurous (or you are "hardcore") and don't mind a bit of extra work, go check out my Guide to Multiple Island Layouts.

Basic Strategies

1. Don't make your waiters walk
The less your waiter walks, the more time he spends serving and the less time he spends getting there.

2. Too many tables!
Resist the urge to add as many tables as you can afford. If you have too many tables and not enough cooks, you won't get the food out fast enough! I find that you should only offer 3 tables for each cook you have.

3. Center your stoves
Keep your stoves centered. A food order from any table can go to any stove. Don't keep all your stoves clustered in one area.

4. Use corners
Your waiter can service in all 8 directions, so use corners as much as possible to give him the most reach.

5. Box waiters in
Form a complete square or rectangle using your tables to trap the waiters in. This way, they don't wander around needlessly to serve food.

6. Avoid the walls
Don't set your tables and chairs against a wall or the grass:

Customers aren't very courteous and they refuse to scoot in! The 3 empty seats shown above will always remain empty because the two customers block them off.


Advanced Strategies

7. Count steps
A good, quick rule of thumb to judge a layout's efficiency is to ask yourself: how many steps maximum do my waiters have to take?

Both these layouts have the same number of tables and stoves, but one is more efficient! Which one?

The answer is the first one, because waiters only have to travel a maximum of 2 steps. In the second one, waiters have to travel a maximum of 3.

8. Avoid diagonals
Look closely at your waiters' speed, you can actually see that they move slower diagonally! It takes 1.4 times longer to cross a tile diagonally than to cross it up, down, left, or right (but it is still faster than going through 2 tiles!). Whenever possible, within reason, try to remove diagonals from your waiters' path.

9. A Note on "Island" Layouts
You'll sometimes see restaurants that have two or more "islands", each island having their own cooks and waiters, like this one:

These islands are very effective, because smaller designs (with less cooks and tables) are much more efficient than bigger, bulkier designs. However, they're also more difficult to create. I've written a Guide to Island Layouts, but this guide will focus strictly on traditional designs since these are easier.


Recommended Layouts

All right, enough talk, here are my recommended layouts!

2 Cooks, 1 Waiter

3 Cooks, 1 Waiter
(Special thanks to Orphaen)

3 Cooks, 2 Waiters
Keep the same layout as above (3 Cooks, 1 Waiter), because you'll need more cooks to handle more tables.

4 Cooks, 2 Waiters

5 Cooks, 2 Waiters

What to do when you have 8 staff
Congratulations, you now have a full staff! If you've come this far, you should really consider using island layouts instead, since it's hard to make an efficient 8 staff "traditional" layout. Check out my guide on Island Layouts.