The expansion summit

When starting out in Restaurant Story, your diner is 7x9 in size and the first expansion costs 5,000 coins. It's the start of a rather imposing mountain, as we all continually strive to find the necessary footholds to grow our places outward.

I started playing in August 2012, and only now over two years later can I finally proclaim to be a member of that elusive club which has reached the summit. That's right, this week I made that momentous tap to initiate the final expansion!

Expansion to 23x26

It takes 15 million coins to pull yourself up and over the final edge, which is in itself no mean feat. With more than 5 million coins still in the bank, I could have executed the last expansion some time ago (which is unsurprising since my last expansion was in March!) but just hadn't found the time to get the business done. Plus I do like to always have a large fund in reserve in the case of an emergency!

So how has The Garlic Tree reacted to the wonderful views that come with reaching 23x26? Here are the obligatory before and after screenshots:

The Garlic Tree before expansion to 23x26

The Garlic Tree after expansion to 23x26

Underwhelming eh?! There's not exactly a lot that's different - I've just adjusted my current layout to fit the new space. The main section has enjoyed the increased room the most, with the table arrangement now including five sets of three tables where there were none previously. This is something I quite like when traipsing around the community because it means I can leave my three tips all on the same set of tables. Now others can do the same when they visit me!

A perhaps more useful consequence of the change in table arrangement is that I can now seat 25 customers at one time, up from 22 in the old set-up. That guarantees an improvement in my income (not that I need it anymore!) and the rate at which food is sold. It's still not enough to prevent any angry bots since there are 28 can enter during the initial wave, but that's more down to the lack of tables currently situated in my outdoor zone. The Thanksgiving Feast from the Autumn goals is to blame for that, although I'd rather have its beauty!

Elsewhere, the two themed sections along the left wall have gained some flooring, although I haven't actually added any new content. I'm just satisfied at present with the spacious layout which each area is enjoying. And with special Christmas themes likely to be installed before long, I don't really want to try any of my other existing themes in there. Moreover, Black Friday's goodies means there's no way I'd spend any gems right now to produce a new theme.

 Previous expansion posts

 15/03/14 Expanding into the garden
 24/08/13 A sporting expansion

 01/06/13 Another expansion at The Garlic Tree
 13/04/13 The Garlic Tree refurbished
 20/02/13 Expansion time!

The eagle-eyed among you may notice that there is a new item on display in the Italian themed section. The Pizza Delivery Bike from the Pizza goals has finally found a spot in the pizzeria! Until now I just couldn't work out an arrangement that allowed it to be included, but after expanding I can fit it in snugly between the Pizza Toss and Leaning Tower of Pizza.

The final expansion required 65 neighbours to complete, and that's many more neighbours than I'd like to have if I'm being honest. It makes tipping everyone something of a marathon, and means I only have time to do it twice a week at the moment. Of course I could simply remove a few neighbours to make things easier, but I just haven't got the ruthless edge needed to pull the trigger on players! Likewise I find it very difficult to turn down neighbour requests which means that reducing that neighbour count is going to be hard work.

Something else which is hard work is the frantic cooking that's going on in my kitchen right now.

Kitchen section of The Garlic Tree

To celebrate the last expansion, The Garlic Tree is putting on a feast! In truth, the reason for the chaotic scenes is Black Friday. Into the final week before that magical day, I'm finally collecting all the level four mastery gems across the Basic appliances having applied my 'minus one' method to mastery. This system seemed perfect when I was first implementing it, but now I'm running into problems - there are too many recipes to master and not enough counters to place the food on! As a result my progress is slow so I'm mighty glad that I started the final step a week in advance and not a couple of days before Black Friday.

Once my mastery of dishes is complete that will leave me with a large question that doesn't have a convincing answer - what next? No more expansions and no more cooking for gems limits the motivation to go on, but I'm determined to keep going. To start with I'll return to my strategy for maximising profit in order to bump up by bank balance again, but after a while I suspect that's going to get monotonous. The prospect of decorating for Christmas is sure to keep me busy for a while though, so let's concentrate on that!

So there you have it. There's no more grass to eat up with my monstrous restaurant having made it to the maximum size of 23x26 after more than two years of toiling. A truly historic event in my Restaurant Story career!