The Rank 10 Restaurant.

Shelby thanked the Good Witch for sprinkling stardust around the building.

Yevgenya got a Gold badge in Sales, and learned to Dazzle, just through her efforts at greeting customers and convincing them to take a look at the menu. (Her mother was impressed, but again was relieved she didn’t have to pay the teenager a salary!)

Rodney, who had become a stellar Server, continued to earn generous tips.

Yulia continued to struggle to keep her business in the black by Dazzling customers into buying the extravagant cakes she kept priced at $9,999.

Troy’s interest in Cooking had only become more avid,

so Derek busied himself by being Host so that Troy could work at the big stove.

Yulia occasionally even earned a customer loyalty star while selling one of the ultra-expensive cakes.

Troy so enjoyed cooking that he was able to use the Energizer regularly, and hadn’t needed to sleep in days.

Derek—a Knowledge Sim who had been Level 10 in all of his skills since college—was very happy to be able to learn something new.

Always alert (from his medical training, probably), Derek was the first to notice that a new reviewer had entered the resto.

He brought this to Yulia’s attention,

and she spent a lot of time with the reviewer, entertaining him, answering all his questions,

selling him a cake at “Cheap” (which gained her a star from him!),

while Derek and the employees and managers hurried around keeping messes under control (including spraying the latest infestation of roaches),

and this all paid off.

Yulia knew that the Best of the Best award would increase her traffic and, since her restaurant needed only a few more customer loyalty stars to get to Rank 10, she felt sure that today was the day she would get her 4th Top-Level Business.

As was her practice, she took a short nap in mid-afternoon in order to be able to be ready for the dinner rush.

By the end of the evening, the resto had reached Rank 10!

When the last diner had left, Derek closed the resto,

and serenaded his wife.

Genya congratulated her mother on their achievement,

and Troy came over to share in the exultation.

Derek decided to open some champagne for a celebration for the staff.

“You know you folks are like members of our family,” he told them,

“and we couldn’t have done any of this without your efforts, and your sacrifices.”

Marisa actually stopped making take-out entrees to join the gathering,

and there was a toast with all 3 family members plus the 7 employees.

Troy took Shelby aside and kissed her soundly (which was no surprise to anyone else).

But what WAS a surprise—at least to Yulia—was the interaction between Komei and Marisa.

“Oh!,” she cried.

“Who saw THAT coming???,” she asked her husband.

“Actually, EVERYONE but you, honey,” Derek teased her. “They ARE both Fortune Sims, after all.”

Genya cleaned up the last of the roaches,

and the staff went home.

Derek took out the last of the trash,

and the family went home, too.

‘I sure hope my new car’s been delivered to the house,’ Yulia thought. And she was anxious to check on her new home water venue. (And to see her other 3 children….)

____________________________________

NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:

Immediately after the resto reached Rank 10, it lost a customer star and went back to Rank 9. Thanks to Wen, I knew that gaining 1 customer star might satisfy Yulia’s 5 Top-Level Businesses LTW inadvertently, and I didn’t want to risk that, so I had Derek close the restaurant immediately.

I had trouble with one spoiled mac and cheese entrée that I lost track of. I guess it happened when Marisa was cooking and had gone orange, and a manager told her to take a break. She would have put her ingredients on a counter, and I would have assigned someone (Genya, Troy, Derek, whoever) to “Resume Cooking.” When that replacement cook finished the dish, he/she would just have put it on a counter (i.e., it DOESN’T automatically go into Yulia’s inventory). By the time I noticed it, it had spoiled. I tried to delete it, or do “Clean Up,” but couldn’t do either (even with “moveobjects on”). I put it out behind the building, but customers kept going back there to consider buying the smelly thing. I put it across the street, and the reviewer unfortunately walked over there to check it out! (See the bottom-left corner of this picture.)

It was a big “Phew!” that he gave Yulia a good review and a Best of the Best award, despite this.

I was SO HAPPY to get a picture of the 3 family members and all 7 employees!!!

Because what was REALLY challenging about getting this restaurant to Rank 10 was wrangling 10 people all at the same time.

Both the Troy-Shelby relationship and the Komei-Marisa relationship will be featured in upcoming posts.

I’ll eventually figure out how many Sim days this resto took to get from Rank 0 to Rank 10 (remember, Yulia NEVER left the lot), and post that info.