20 Tables is not enough in cafe world

[Chioke]

I was doing a new layout. did a lot of work on it too. Finally managed to fit 20 tables in this layout, but with a very long walk for the customers from front door to tables. I made sure there was a path to every chair and every table for both customers and waiters. What's more, i visually watched to make sure every chair and table was being used, and served. Yet I still have customers walking out with clocks over their heads for lack of place to sit. And I think it has something to do with the distance they have to walk to get to the seats.

[Nuru]

Now I need to either shorten the walk, or find a way to fit more tables. I had originally tried using tables as part of the barrier, by putting chairs on inside, but the waiters were going clear outside to serve. Seems intelligence is not a requirement for working at my restaurant. So trying to do that to fit more tables in won't work. I sometimes get the clocks when I've just loaded it up as you have a sudden influx of people then. Just let it run and watch your buzz rise. You may possibly have an issue having all your counters in a long line. They are recommending groups of 2 these days.

[Himalayan]

I looked into that, but don't see a way to split the counters up without having to take the whole layout back to the chalkboard again.. It seems to be working anyway, as the servers are serving everybody. What I suspect the problem is, is. When the customer first enters the front door, I suspect it is at this moment that he is randomly assigned a chair and table, and a path to that chair or table is plotted for him. This chair and table then becomes reserved for him in the game, and not released till he finishes eating and gets up.

[Holbrook]

With the extra long walk, I suspect I am getting more customers in the cafe at once due to the time it takes for them to reach their seating, and thus the tables aren't getting released as quickly and thus customers are finding all the accessible chairs and tables reserved. Thus they think there is not enough tables or chairs. So thats' why I think i'm getting the clocks, is that by making the walk much further for the customer, I've extended the time considerably, and thus the tables are no longer getting freed up fast enough for the influx of customers. Thus I now need more than 20 tables and chairs.

[GaMeR-BoY]

My stoves & counters have been in a long line for most of the time I've been playing this game and it's never been an issue. No matter how you decorate your cafe, the number calculated is always going to be 18. Having more tables and chairs is purely for looks. You might have some seats going north-south or east-west which would cause your servers to weave in and out to get to each table rather than walk a more direct route. Here's a suggestion- make use of all the room your cafe provides- instead of decorating first, layout out your tables/chairs THEN decorate. You have so much available space and most of it's used for walking customers.

[Addae]

I have figured out that the number of tables you need in any cafe layout is simply the time a customer spent in cafe divided by customers' arrival interval. And the former consist of walking to table, waiting at table to be served, and the eating itself. So for example at a buzz factor of 105, which is a max arrival rate of 17 customers/min or 1000/hr, and given the fixed eating rate of about 25secs, to keep your cafe to 20 tables, the walking and waiting must not exceed 45 secs. If you teleport all these 45 secs can be used to walk to tables. The minimum number of tables possible, assuming you teleport and with chairs next to doors, ie zero walking time, is about 7 to 8, but your buzz will be hit at every "standing start".