This is my first guide on steam. Thanks for checking it out :)
This guide is current for version 1.1.0(c501), as far as I know


New Bakery level:
There's a confusing element to the bakeries that has a lot of people going "oh crap, I can't make the cakes that the customers are asking for! How do I do it?!?!"
So far, it looks like the only important thing that the customer is asking for is the FLAVOR of the item. It doesn't need to be a cake, it can (and in the beginning levels, will have to) be cookies - or doughnuts, even. This is a radical departure from how the game is usually played, and I feel like the confusion is completely warranted, as the recipe cards don't tell you that the type of confection is irrelevant to the customer.


* For pizza, oil can be placed in a sink, then you can grab flour and "double tap" the sink to immediately get your flour to the flat round dough state. it also frees up the oil counter to be used as a normal counter (including chopping stuff on it)

various appliance quirks:

* New item!! : rotating grabber - a grabber style conveyor belt with a swiveled front half, allowing you to change the output direction from left, forward, and right, by pressing the "use" button on it while your restaurant is open. This is can be particularly helpful for two scenarios:
A) when you need an output with a bend instead of just straight out
B) As an 'oh S#!@' button to stop an 'I love Lucy' overloaded automation scenario from happening. This can save you from many a burnt item - or a misguided juggling act.
You could also use it to manually decide where items on your conveyor belts get "sent" to, if you have an intentional branching setup. WARNING: If you try and change the grabbers direction while holding an item (such as the scrubber), you will frustratingly drop it onto the grabber, instead.

There is a bit of a downside to this new item, however: it changes the conveyor/grabber upgrade tree so that you are no longer guaranteed a smart grabber when upgrading from a grabber. This can be quite dismaying if you're counting on getting one next round to further your automation build.


*combiner works on the sink in a slightly different way, if you want water for dough. You basically just set it adjacent to a sink and point the blue arrows towards the sink, if I understand correctly

*hobs won't cook buns or plates, so applying one to cooked food on a hob, either manually or via a combiner, will halt the cooking/burning and the combined items will just sit on the hob. This pretty much makes safety hobs and safety gas mains almost useless.

*the tray doesn't seem to want to pick up 2 clean dishes, if held (huge bummer)

* Blueprint desk, discount desk, and Copy desk upgrade into one another on a cycle : Copy>blueprint>discount, I believe. research desk will upgrade to a random of the 3, though

*Research desks don't work through rooms - so don't place one on the outside of a half-wall counter while the filing cabinets are on the other side of it.

*sinks don't cause debuffs to tables on the other side of a half-wall counter. It essentially counts it as being in another room - even if you're character is actuating it from the side with the customer tables (dining area).

*in a pinch, you can use the automatic dishwasher as a dirty dishrack - just don't accidentally hit the "use" key on it, unless you have time to waste!

* Can't decide between buying a counter or a dining table? Unless you want a surface to chop on, the answer is table - because you can make it a zero top and use it as a counter. They both cost the same, but as your run progresses you'll likely need more dining tables and less counters (particularly if you're automating with prep stations and conveyors)

auto-plater:

* Autoplater will NOT feed plates into an adjacent plate rack ( boo :/ )

* autoplater also seems to only actually hold 3 plates, not 4 ??



Customers and Tables:

* customers will grab their orders off of a conveyor belt, if it is adjacent to their table ( - and you can artificially increase the profile of said table, while maintaining a small customer capacity for it....see next bullet point).

Table placement, chairs, and merging:

* the "use" key/button can be used on the green chairs to remove or place them back, and the "pick-up/drop" button can rotate the chairs to be counted at a different adjacent table, where applicable. if you put 2 of the tables flush together, it will create a bigger table - but you can also pare the bigger table back down to a 1 or 2 top, and utilize the table's bigger profile to make it easier to get a conveyor belt to the customers, as I believe it will all act as the table...so you have an easier time making it adjacent to things (like a conveyor belt, or the half-walls that let kitchen staff access tables/counters on the other side)
Also, tables placed corner-to-corner (diagonally) won't merge. They need one of their whole sides to touch another table. As far as I know you can't prevent the basic tables from merging when they are adjacent, so be mindful of that.

* Customer "self bus" optimization: you can influence where on a longer table customers will leave their dirty plates, etc, when they're done. The spot they leave their dishes is the section where the number of people that can be seated at the table hovers above it. picking up and setting down of table sections allows you to move that spot. This can be extremely helpful for cutting down the sheer distance diner staff would need to traverse, especially when used in conjunction with conveyor belts.


random bits:

*the sedate card doesn't effect players that are in a different room than the customers, so you can set up delivering to tables that are adjacent to half-wall counters or conveyor belts etc.

*if you have two of the same item in the garage warehouse thing, you can exchange those two for a new random item, instead of needing 3. It seems like the same is true for upgraded items: 2 upgraded items will be sufficient to spit out a new item from the conveyor belt setup in the back.

*rerolling on a "decoration day" will yield only more decorations - but if you're doing a franchise run with the gold card that gives you a new blueprint every time you purchase one, the new ones won't be decorations.


*bringing a Vase item (gives 1 formal theme) from the garage into a run will allow you to potentially have two themes in one restaurant - but it won't help if you don't go the formal route, because you won't get an opportunity to fill out a second theme to where you'll benefit from the bonus.

*info on how dumbwaiter can interact is sparse. Conveyors DO work for dumbwaiters - but since the dumbwaiters need to be actuated from both (or more, if there are more than two on the map) dumbwaiters with the "use" button to lift their little door, it makes their use impossible as hands-off automation. without that door being open, a conveyor cannot push/pull items within the dumbwaiter.


Glitches I've experienced:
Very consistently since the latest version, when starting up in the little starter building/warehouse thing, my "use" key won't work. To fix it, I have to go into the pause menu and select 'remove input', and then rejoin.

SEEDS of interest :
playing around with the seed entry, I've found a few neat maps.
This simple key will denote properties I noticed with the maps below:
^ = big/good dining area (room with the entrance from the outside)
+ = big/good kitchen
& = good half-wall counters and/or door placement
| = clean/straightforward
? = seems good or fun
* = zany, or hard


!!!! : It seems that the Haloween update may have changed the output of the seeds. The seeds listed after " ----------------------- " were discovered prior to the update, and may not still be accurate.


bort33jh ^ + & |
opti43ui ^ + & |
botha88t ^ + |
ramcot5r + & |
hubtib3k ^ + |
rhine22c ^ +

ramcot59 (has a 5 space long expediting half-wall counter!)
ramcot47 &
scot34q ? *
------------------------------------------------------------

goldy ^ + | ?
admirals ^ + & ? |
wasp ^ + & |
wrw33px ^ + & |
kitty ^ + |
voxel ^ + |
eb26il ^ + &
ca77lof ^ | ?
ca77luf ^ + |
utsf7 ^ + |
y55scv ^ + |
jndhbasj ^|? (Paige's pick/contribution)
jndhbaj |?
jikol | &
corpse + &
cramped ^ *
aspen ^ |
tiles ^ |
funk (also gunk) ^ |
nickel ^ &
bold ^ &
titan ^ ?
table + *
Lo112fi +? ( seems to spawn conveyor blueprints more frequently. found by MadNatter420)
cots ^ |
cyts ^ |
sbynyi ^ |
eb7il ^ |
icecap ^
utensil ^
cjrsq ^
qwerty ^
thrillho +
xdty323 ^
vg7734th (this is the backwards entry of a weekly/daily challenge seed)
ca77lyf * (if you're looking for an odd challenge)