Food is a crucial part of running a diner. With Road Diner, we want the game to be about running a diner rather than turning it into a cooking game. So a sort of balance has to be maintained and we believe we came up with a nice approach.

We are going to grab the cooking mechanics from our Food Truck Simulator and expand it to fit the needs of the Road Diner and later on Motel Simulator. However, in both cases we don’t want you to spend half the day in the kitchen making dishes. Instead, we want dedicated NPCs to handle the job.

So why a cooking mechanics in the first place? Two reasons for that. First, we want you to give you the option to cook yourself in the early stages of the game to save some cash. Second, whatever dish you create to offer in your diner (and later motel), you will actually have to teach an employee how to prepare said dish with a real, hands-on approach so once he/she learns it, it will make this dish on their own in the future.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149620/Gas_Station_Simulator/
If you also have a gas station in Gas Station Simulator built up, you will be able to offer some of the dishes that don’t spoil too quickly like sandwiches on the gas station as well. This provides benefits to the gas station and some extra income at the diner.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1792100/Motel_Simulator/
In Motel Simulator we will go with a very similar approach to food as again, that game is about running a motel rather than being a cook. The things that makes the Motel different from a diner when it comes to food are the customers and special requests they might have. What is however more important from the point of view of someone playing Road Diner is that a properly expanded diner will be able to cover the early culinary needs of the motel allowing you to focus on different areas first if you choose to do so.