In light of the announcement of a third entry in Vertigo Gaming’s popular restaurant management simulator franchise known as Cook, Serve, Delicious!, I thought it would be worthwhile for me to examine and review the most recent game in the series. Considering how much fun I’ve had with the original Cook, Serve, Delicious! title, I found myself quite interested to see what its sequel might have to offer.

As it happens, I’ve reviewed the first Cook, Serve, Delicious! title in the past. Within this review, however, I will assume you haven’t read that article and have no prior experience with the series. With that in mind, I shall begin by discussing what little plot there is within Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!.

As was the case in the first game, your main objective is to establish your restaurant’s reputation from the ground up. Your restaurant starts as a zero-star, hole-in-the-wall eatery, and your ultimate goal is to earn a five-star designation. You go about this by accomplishing various tasks and serving many various foods to thousands of customers throughout your tenure operating your restaurant.

According to the exposition with which you’re presented upon starting Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!, it’s assumed that you managed to accomplish that goal in the previous game with your original restaurant before it was abruptly shut down through no fault of your own.

It turns out that the skyscraper within which your previous restaurant was located fell victim to extraordinary amounts of embezzlement perpetrated by its executives, which led to the building being raided by law enforcement and consequently shut down.

You refuse to let this major setback discourage you, however, and you vow to rebuild the reputation of Cook, Serve, Delicious! within its new home in a different building. Of course, in order to re-establish your restaurant’s reputation, you’ll need to attract plenty of customers and generate positive “buzz” for your restaurant. I’ll get to that shortly.

You start your campaign with a small handful of recipes and two thousand dollars to your name. If you so desire, you can spend all or part of that two thousand dollars to purchase new foods in addition to the basic recipes you can use by default. Doing so will allow you to change up your menu frequently; you’ll want to do that due to a concept I’ll discuss momentarily.

I’ve found that it’s wise to purchase at least one or two extra foods at the start of your campaign in addition to the recipes you’re given by default. That’s mainly due to a concept to which the game refers as “menu rot.” Essentially, the concept of menu rot means that if certain foods remain part of your active menu for more than one to two in-game days, potential customers will lose interest in your menu.

In the first Cook, Serve, Delicious! title, you were notified both via your in-game email and your active menu screen whenever menu rot was occurring, as well as which menu items needed to be swapped out in order to avoid dealing with its effects. As far as I can tell, you’re no longer notified of menu rot via email, though it’s still quite easy to tell when menu rot occurs.

As was the case in the first Cook, Serve, Delicious!, menu rot can be avoided by purchasing foods the game classifies as “staple” items. These foods don’t generate menu rot, which means they can remain on your menu for as long as you desire. I would still advise changing up your menu at least every so often, but having access to a small handful of staple items may very well help you get the hang of preparing certain items on your menu.

As I mentioned a moment ago, you’ll want to generate as much positive buzz about your restaurant as possible in order to attract more customers; this, in turn, will generate more income that can be used to upgrade your restaurant and expand your menu. You accomplish this through the game’s main mechanisms, namely preparing and serving the various foods you’ve added to your active menu.

If you prepare and serve any given customer’s order perfectly, you’ll generate positive buzz. Alternatively, if you don’t prepare a customer’s order exactly as they want it or any customers walk out of your restaurant because you didn’t serve their orders in a certain amount of time, you’ll generate negative buzz instead.

That concept leads me to the main gameplay aspects of Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!. As you might expect, most foods you can add to any given in-game day’s active menu require preparation of some sort.

The process of preparing and serving any given menu item can range from quite simple (for example, pouring an appropriate amount of a beverage) to complex, such as properly assembling and cooking a serving of lasagna or a hamburger with several toppings.

That’s the main reason I suggest starting your campaign with menu items that are easier to prepare. That way, you’ll get used to the process more quickly and begin to develop the muscle memory necessary to begin experimenting with more involved foods when you feel comfortable doing so.

Additionally, as you become more efficient at preparing whatever foods you’ve placed on a given day’s menu, you won’t have to worry as much about customers growing impatient and walking out of your restaurant. I highly recommend making certain investments early on in order to ensure that customers don’t become impatient and take their business elsewhere.

As you might imagine, impatient customers who storm out of your restaurant will wreak havoc on any positive buzz you’ve generated throughout a given day. Due to this, I suggest investing in certain purchasable items such as side dishes whenever you’re able; doing so will increase the amount of time that most customers will remain patient and wait for you to serve their order.

Speaking of side dishes, that concept leads me to the main new addition to the established gameplay mechanics within Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!. Namely, this title introduced the concept of what it refers to as “holding stations.”

These holding stations can be used to prepare certain foods in advance so that they’re ready to be served at a moment’s notice. For example, if you have such foods as pretzels or chicken nuggets on your active menu, you can use these holding stations to prepare several orders of these items in advance rather than having to make them to order and risk customers walking out.

I should mention, however, that certain foods (such as the aforementioned side dishes) can only be prepared within holding stations and cannot be made to order. Thankfully, the game makes it quite simple for you to tell at a glance which menu items outright require holding stations and which items would benefit from their use.

To elaborate, if any given menu item bears a red “HS” icon, that means it can only be prepared within holding stations. Alternatively, if any item on your menu has a yellow “HS” icon, that means it can both be made to order and prepared in advance within a holding station. It’s also worth mentioning that any foods you’ve made within a holding station can only be served a certain number of times before you either run out of them or they become stale and need to be replaced.

I strongly advise keeping as many menu items and side dishes prepared within your holding stations as possible at any given time. That’s mainly because the mechanic which I consider the bane of my existence within Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! has carried over from the original game. I’m referring, of course, to the concept of rush hours.

You’ll typically deal with two rush hours per day, around noon and 6PM. During these rush hours, your restaurant will likely fill with hungry customers, which means you’ll have several orders you need to deal with as efficiently and as quickly as possible. If you’ve got certain foods prepared in advance in your holding stations, that tends to make things considerably easier in my experience.

I often find myself overwhelmed due to the complexity and sheer amount of orders that come flooding in during those accursed sixty-minute onslaughts. Although that can prove to have negative effects on my income and levels of positive buzz, rush hours do tend to provide a considerable sense of accomplishment if I manage to make it through a flood of orders with no mistakes.

To conclude, I initially purchased Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! because I thoroughly enjoyed its predecessor. I expected more of the same concepts that I experienced and grew to enjoy in the first game, and hoped that the sequel would provide more of the same without making the gameplay feel stale. My expectations have largely been exceeded by this title, and I personally can’t wait to see what the franchise’s third installment will bring to the table when it sees the light of day.

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Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!

12.99 USD

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Helpful, In-Depth Tutorials for Newcomers
• Gameplay is Easy to Learn, Yet Challenging to Master
• New Additions Help Gameplay Remain Fresh

Cons

• Gameplay Can Quickly Become Overwhelming and Formulaic