CHEF! September 28, 2026 CHEF! Day 16 Iteration 183

Tight Kitchens Flow

Staff meeting head-on in a one-tile-wide aisle now pass each other, one on each side of the tile, as they already did in open space. Before, every tile of a narrow aisle was treated like a doorway, where people wait their turn, so two cooks meeting in one froze face to face for up to 12 seconds. In the GIF, the same three people take 16 seconds to get through before and 4 seconds after.
Real doorways (a single gap with open floor on both sides, like the front door) still make people take turns.
When an aisle is truly full and there's no room to step aside, one person now backs up a tile the way they came to let the other through. If the one chosen to give way is boxed in too, the other gives way after a short wait instead of both standing there.
In Edit Layout, any two pieces of a counter run can be dragged onto each other to swap places: the dirty-dish drop, the dish rack spot, the plating table, the mise rail, appliances, and counters with whatever is on them, like the pot rack. Before, only an appliance could swap with an empty counter.
The pot rack is drawn bigger, with its pots and pans scaled to match.
Over 10 days in the roomy default restaurant nothing changed much (75.4 guests served a day, was 75.2); the fix is for the tight kitchens players build.