The management screen or management menu is where the player can take strategic decisions about the restaurant, read emails, view statistics, start a new day, and many more options.
A view of the Management menu
On the right side of the screen there is the TowerMail email client, while on the left side there is the menu itself.
The background of the management screen will be the current restaurant. The current difficulty and current restaurant star rating will be shown to the left of the menu.
There are four buttons on the left side of the TowerMail panel:
New: Inbox where new unread emails are until the player reads them. The number shows the number of unread emails.
Read: Inbox where already read emails are stored. There is no scrolling, so the amount of emails shown is effectively limited to 15.
Favs: Inbox where favorite emails are stored. Again the limit is 15 emails.
Bets: The Cookbet app with all its functions.
Example of one email received
When clicking on each email, the email opens so the player can read it, and the buttons on the left are changed to going back and to mark the email as favorite (thus storing it in the Favs inbox) or delete it.
If there is any action to take, the option will appear under the body.
Types of emails[]
There are several types of emails, with the general category being shown by color. Gray emails are general ones, yellow ones alert about something, green ones are important notices or choices to make, purple ones indicate Cook, Serve, Delicious! patch notes and there is a special one announcing the game's sequel, Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!
Events, choices and bets[]
An email will be received when Extra Events are available, Crazy Dave wants to make a bet, a VIP wants to visit the restaurant, there is a project to be funded on ClicknStart or a Cook4Luv person wants to go on a date, and the corresponding results.
Menu rot[]
A yellow email will be received every time there is menu rot, i.e. every time a food with the Menu Rot detractor has been left on the menu for two consecutive days.
Buzz and money[]
Sometimes emails will be received that inform about a buzz gain for the current day, or about earned money. Some examples are emails about perfect days, succesful robbery chores or just random emails.
Situations that affect the next day[]
The most common email about this is an email that alerts about a severe weather condition during certain hours. There are some others indicating that customers act in a particular way, for instance, being more patient.
Tutorial and information[]
Some emails inform the player about how a certain aspect of Cook, Serve, Delicious! works.
Funny[]
A funny email
Many emails are just random, just for fun. Some even make references to other games.
These emails will not be received if the Mail Filter equipment is bought and active.
Opens the Active Menu screen. This is the screen where the player decides which foods are going to be on the menu the next day. At the beginning of the game only 4 slots are available, but the rest will become available as the player progresses. Before the player reaches a one-star restaurant, the 6 slots will be available.
The Active Menu screen
On the right side there are all the foods the player has bought, with their upgrade status. If there are more than 20 foods some arrows will appear to get to the next page. The upper part features three icons, allowing to show the food boosters, detractors and price. Note that if there is Menu Rot afecting any food, that food will show the menu rot icon flashing, even if the detractors button is not selected. The same applies to food with the Staple Food booster.
On the left side there is the menu itself. In order to add food to the menu, the player needs to click and drag the food from the right side and release the button when in the wanted slot on the left side. Reorganizing the food on the left side is also possible. Clicking a food that is already on the menu will delete that food from the menu.
Note that peasant food will not be able to be added to the menu on a two star restaurant or higher. It will appear grayed out and the detractor icon will be permanently shown.
If The Daily Special equipment is bought and active, the first slot on the manu will be the daily special.
Changing foods on the menu may change buzz, it is important to keep an eye on the buzz indicator, situated on the top bar.
Your Daily Buzz[]
The Daily Buzz screen.
Opens the Daily Buzz screen. It explains where the player's buzz percentage comes from, showing all the boosters and detractors. It also shows flex buzz and its range. Note that it does not even out flex buzz. If the menu has one food with Morning Aroma (which gives -5% flex buzz during morning hours) and another one with the Breakfast booster (which gives +5% flex buzz during morning hours), it will not show 0% flex buzz, but -5%/+5%.
Everything about buzz, boosters and detractors is explained on the Buzz article.
View/buy foods[]
The View/Buy foods menu
Opens the food manager, in which the player can buy foods, practice serving them and rebind keys and buttons.
On the left side of the screen the player can choose to see standard or specialty foods (added in the Extra Crispy Edition), and to enter the key binding submenu.
Standard and specialty foods[]
There are several icons indicating the food status:
Purchasable food: Food will not have any particular icon.
Non-purchasable food: Equipment required, food will have a forbidden gray icon.
Showing price and upgrades.
Already purchased food: Food will be grayed out and a shopping cart will be imprinted.
Also, the upper part features three icons, the same ones from the Active Menu, allowing to show the food boosters, detractors and price/upgrades.
One particular food screen.
Clicking on any food will enter another screen. On the right part it will be shown the food's icon and description, its price and menu price, if it is upgradeable or not and how upgraded is it. On the left side all its boosters and detractors will be shown. Tapping or hovering over any of the boosters or detractors will explain what is it about on the right side.
Hovering over any of the icons will show what is that icon about on the right side.
When the food is not purchased these are the icons that will be shown.
On the bottom part there will be two options, to practice serving the food, which will open practice mode, and the bought sign if the food is already purchased. If it is not, the options will change to Try it out (same as practice) and purchase. If the food is not purchasable, it will show which piece of equipment is required to do so.
Key binding[]
The Key binding submenu
On this submenu the player can choose any of the foods or chores and rebind each of the keys used in that particular food/chore. There are also additional options regarding changing ingredient pages and pressing the key to serve food. The only keys that are not customizable are the prep stations keys, that remain being numbers from 1 to 8.
Rebinding keys is one of the ways to make Cook, Serve, Delicious! easier. Default keys are very intuitive, but sometimes far from each other. For instance, making a one star Lasagna with default keys can be a nightmare, as for each layer the player would have to press P for pasta, S for sauce, C for cheese and R for parmesan, and then repeat two more times. However, changing those keys to, for instance Q for pasta, W for sauce and E for Cheese will allow the player to make a classic italian lasagna pressing QWER QWER QWER.
