UnderNewManagement

Under New Management

Every diner, café and bar in the city has a name over the door and somebody counting the takings. Now that somebody can be you. Buy a business from its owner, keep the staff on, and make your money from the real citizens who walk in and order.

Right now it covers the places citizens go to eat and drink, which are the businesses they visit often enough to run. More kinds of business are planned (see What's next).

Buying a business

Talk to the owner of a diner, café, restaurant or bar and choose "I'd like to buy your business." The asking price is shown on the option, and it's greyed out if you can't afford it. If the owner isn't around, any staff member on shift can phone them for you.

The price depends on:

• Regular customers. These are the citizens whose favourite place it is for a meal, a snack, coffee or a drink. A busy place costs more than a quiet one.
• The neighbourhood. The same diner costs more uptown than in the slums.
• The menu. Places with pricier menus cost more, and earn more.

The owner stays on as your manager, and the staff keep their jobs. Nothing about the place changes except who gets the money. You also get:

• Keys to every door.
• The owner's login for the office cruncher.
• The run of the place. No trespassing, no "buy something or leave", and no muggers bothering you inside.

Running it

Every sale is real. When a citizen orders a burger at your diner, the money goes into the till and a burger comes out of your stock.

• Stock. A new business comes with a couple of orders' worth of each menu item. When something runs out, customers can't order it, and when nothing they want is left, they walk out. Those are counted as turned away.
• Orders. Restock on the cruncher. Order sizes follow how busy the place is (a few days of that item's expected sales). You pay up front (30% of the menu price, from the till first, then your wallet), and the delivery arrives in 1 to 3 days. Press ORDER again for more.
• Wages. At midnight the staff are paid out of the till (vacant positions cost nothing). If the till is short, the rest comes from your wallet.
• A manager who restocks. Tell the manager (or have staff on shift call them) "I'll give you a raise if you handle the restocking." The raise is paid with the wages, and an hour before closing (11pm for places that never close) the manager tops up anything running low, by what it actually sold lately, paid from the day's takings. They never spend the money set aside for wages. Changed your mind? Tell them they can go back to their old pay.
• The manager's report. Every morning at 7, each manager vmails you: last night's wages, deliveries, what they ordered, what's running low or out, and anything they've noticed about the customers. Read it on your home cruncher. One message lets you know the reports are in.
• Regulars. Every citizen has a favourite place for a meal, a snack, coffee and a drink. Turn a regular away with empty shelves and they may start going somewhere else; keep the place stocked and newcomers may make it their favourite. Nobody announces it, but a good manager notices.
• Business doesn't stop when you leave. The game simulates citizens across town less than the ones around you, so a business you're far from would sell a fraction of what it sells with you nearby. The mod makes up the difference from the business's own regulars (using its real stock), so your businesses earn the same wherever you are.
• Opening hours. Businesses keep their own hours; a late-night bar or eatery may not open until midday. The ledger tells you whether a place is open and who's in.
• After hours. You can stay inside your own business at closing time: the staff lock up and go home around you (and if they've already left, the place is closed up for them). Waiting with your watch isn't interrupted.
• Selling. Changed your mind? Tell the manager, or staff on shift, that you want to sell. You get back 60% of what you paid, plus whatever's in the till.

Maki