CHEF! September 16, 2026 CHEF! Day 4 Iteration 30

Dishes Are Carried, Not Teleported

The dishwasher now does real rounds. He walks to the dirty-dish bin, takes up to 4 plates from the kitchen side, carries them to the sink and washes them, then stacks them on a new clean dish rack on the back counter beside the sink. Plates used to jump straight from the bin to the sink and back into stock.
Cooks now fetch their plates. When a dish is ready, the cook leaves the food at the station, walks to the clean rack for a plate, brings it back and plates the dish, then takes it to the pass. If the rack is empty, the cook waits there with "WAITING FOR A CLEAN PLATE".
The sink now shows what's happening: dirty plates stacked in the basin, running water and suds while a load is being washed. Before, the sink always looked dry and empty, even mid-wash. The clean rack shows one standing plate per clean plate on it.
"Free plates" now means the plates on the rack, and "Dirty dishes" counts every dirty plate, whether on the bin, in the dishwasher's hands or in the sink.
The extra walking costs the kitchen. Over 10 games of 15 minutes each, a default game now serves about 42 guests instead of 57, and loses about 36% of its guests instead of 8%. Plates never ran short; the time goes on cooks walking to the rack. The balance is provisional.
Before and after, zoomed in on the kitchen: 076 shows the dishwasher "washing" at a dry, empty sink. 077 shows a load in the sink, the rack on the back counter and a cook bringing a plate back to the prep counter.
The animated clip (118) was recorded on the v0.0.36 build itself: the ringed dishwasher's whole round (bin, sink, rack), with a cook walking across the kitchen to the rack for a plate, the walk Iteration 31 then cut.