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CSD Tips & Tricks for New Players

By Kaedo

A long list of helpful advice for new players to this great and challenging little gem!

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Created by

Kaedo
Online

Category: Gameplay Basics, Secrets, Walkthroughs

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

2 Dec, 2013 @ 11:39pm

3 Dec, 2013 @ 12:36am

7,427	Unique Visitors
67	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

General Help

Upgrades

Mid-game and Beyond

Fun Stuff

Comments

General Help

Focus on making and upgrading easy yet expensive dishes in the early game, such as the Fish and Chicken until you get the hang of things.
When preparing the Fish you can actually press all three arrow keys at once to quicken the process substantially.
Try for perfect days in the early game as this will net you 250 dollars each time (note that you can quit out of a day to retry from main menu if you want to save scum - no need to quit the game entirely).
If the game is moving too fast for you then you could intentionally drive your buzz down by leaving non-staple foods on the menu and so forth to cut down on the amount of customers you get. This has the added bonus of making perfect days easier.
It's not always a good idea to start multiple extra prep cook items at the same time (such as Burgers, Spaghetti or Nachos) since some may start burning if you're not quick enough fixing up the first. Consider instead intentionally delaying throwing some in - this becomes especially important in the challenges later in game. By staggering them you ensure you can methodically go one by one rather than rushing as those on the backburners will... well... burn.
Be very careful about fat fingering the number keys as the easiest way to create a bad order is to slip and send out some raw chicken or the like...
Be aware when certain easily burned foods that need extra prep (such as Pancakes or Baked Potatoes) are going to be ready, as if you get bogged down making a complicated soup they will most likely burn. It can be good to pause for just a second and finish those off before opening any new tickets.
I would generally suggest staying away from putting Soup on the menu as the prep time can be much too great (especially if you haven't memorized the recipes) and even fully upgraded isn't worth it price-wise. Steak and Lobster can both reach the same price and require far less work. In addition even if you have them all memorized the chopping time alone can slow down your flow to the point of being a combo breaker. That being said there's a great Soup mnemonic guide right here in the Steam community if you like that extra challenge.
Even if you've burnt a food go ahead and still prep it correctly as this will result in an average order if the prep is correct at least. Average orders are combo breakers, but don't have the Buzz penalty bad orders do.
Try to knock out chores as soon as they pop up (especially late game) as the "patience (i.e. the amount of time you have to complete them) is much less for these than for customers. Additionally the Buzz penalty for missing chores is much greater than having bad orders.
If you're going for achievements, consider rounding out your ethnic foods or you may find yourself turning into a Mexican-food-only restaurant or whathaveyou in the late game.
Try to keep a flow of completing orders from top to bottom in waves to avoid getting confused as to which food you should tackle next. It's generally not good to fall into a state where you're hurriedly doing each food as it's running out of time.
A trick to completing various combo bets is that you can "stall" bad orders (provided they're not instant foods like Sushi) by allowing them to sit on a burner if you know you've screwed up. In fact you can even let this food catch fire and take up a slot and then focus on keeping your combo going elsewhere until you reach the quota. Once this happens, finally serve up that disgusting mess for a c-c-c-c-combo breaker.
Pay special attention to the various detractors on food items as having too many fatty foods, for example, can really drive your buzz down.
Read the instructions for new foods carefully and make sure to practice before throwing them on your menu. I had a situation where I upgraded my Lasagna from nothing to max and got confused by the Stuffed Piza recipe as it effectively combines the Meat and Vegetable Lasagna, which a cursory glance at the paragraph doesn't make clear.

Upgrades

Get the chore upgrades ASAP as doing these constantly will not make you money and will distract you from making food.
Get all of the various quality of life upgrades ASAP as well. Especially those that increase customer patience and, most importantly, the Daily Special. This allows you to create a greater demand for expensive food you know how to make. That being said avoid putting anything TOO complicated in the slot otherwise you might get overwhelmed at rush hour.

Mid-game and Beyond

Don't bother betting against Dave if he's challenging you to reach a certain Tip amount as you will most likely lose. Whether customers tip or not is very random and reaching 100-150 amounts can be rare even on perfect days using high tip foods.
Be sure to check your mail after making bets with Crazy Dave as his money will not get automatically added to your account. Not doing this can create a confusing situation where you get a message at top left at day start stating you didn't take a bet when you thought you hadn't taken one at all. This is simply because you haven't cleared out the previous bet email yet.
In the early game when you can't buy bet tickets avoid the cheap payoffs. Since each ticket is effectively worth 300 dollars, it's worth it to wait for a random payoff of 1200 even if that will be tricky day rather than a measly 250 dollar day that's easy.
Focus on dates when they show up as the tickets they provide you are worth way more than whatever food you may burn preparing their food/answering their texts.
In the same regard focus on robberies when they occur as the 400 dollar reward for a successful sketch will be worth far more than any meals you may screw up in the process.
Love interests can continue to show up in the late game so don't be worried if you haven't gotten The Love Chef achievement at that point.
Make sure to keep several thousand dollars handy once you're alerted ClickNStart has begun as some of these investments are costly and can surprise you if you're hovering around zilch because of upgrades. I would always recommend fully investing in these just to make sure they get completed as they provide HUGE quality of life increases for the late game.
You can see how far along you are in serving customers and certain food group achievements by clicking the trophy icon at the splash screen at the end of each day.

Fun Stuff

Read the spam emails as a lot are great video game references and just generally really funny.
Read the upgrade/purchase text for food as there are also some great jokes in there.

23 Comments

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andiana 29 Dec, 2024 @ 10:05am

amazing tips! the fish one with the keys is of great help honestly- i'm on day 13 and at first this game was so overwhelming since i only played it on my phone until now. i was flabbergasted when i realized i couldn't use my mouse. but i got the hang of it after a few days. thank you!!

Techhead7890 7 May, 2023 @ 7:01pm

Just wanted to say your tips were great! Doing Fish and (Fried) Chicken, perfect days, buying Chore upgrades, and staying away from Soup was super helpful and let me sink my teeth into the game! :)

Watereaters 29 Sep, 2018 @ 8:31am

Why not put down the fact that you can serve ready food while doing something else, even if it is throwing out the garbage

Sojiro 19 Sep, 2016 @ 11:57am

If you don't want to waste time removing the spam messages, the filter is not a complete waste of money. If you want to see the many hilarious messages CSD send you for flavor, the filter is worth than useless.

cooljammer00 13 Jul, 2016 @ 12:06pm

So I guess buying the spam filter is a complete waste of money?

Kaedo [author] 12 Apr, 2016 @ 4:12pm

You are welcome sir!

InfamousSpike 1 Apr, 2016 @ 6:20pm

I had no idea you could press all of the arrow keys at once for the fish. It never occured to me to try! Thanks for the tips.

Jacko 1 Sep, 2015 @ 9:41am

@BLAM-O!
Don't know if this is still a problem to you but have you made sure that you're adding the butter AND the sugar? If so then it's probably a weird glitch that you should report to Chubigans.

BLAM-O! 3 Jul, 2015 @ 1:31pm

I could use some help with Banana Foster. I'm using the base recipe and waiting for the smoke before bananas. Then, when they light up green as ready or even yellow, I get an angry response from my customer! I thought I might be accidentally hitting Rum but I'm not adding anything else! Is this a bug? I can't serve them consistently. Sometimes they're fine but I still get lots of angry???

BLAM-O! 3 Jul, 2015 @ 1:30pm

Zoom-Zoom, you should remap the lasagna keys. I didn't and just got good at typing the sequence so it's not so bad. Repetition, repetition!

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