How do I build my own bakery?

Evenstar606

I bought the Deliciously Indulgent Bakery, and I've tried reading on here how to build your own bakery using the content, but all the info has me confused. Here are some questions I have:

1. How do I keep customers out of the baking room? I built a separate room for a fridge, counters, and the baking station. But Sims keep going in there and using the fridge. I have the Barrier to Entry item on my Wishlist, and am saving up for it, but would that even work?

2. How do I stock shelves? I read that you have to go into Buy mode after you bake each item, and place it on the racks and shelves individually from there. Or you can bake everything at home and bring it to work? Or there's a cheat that spawns food automatically, but I want to actually have my Sim do the baking.

3. Can I sell other food items at the bakery too? I have the Bistro Oven and set, the Wood Fire Oven, and the Japanese grill.

4. What do I set the lot type as for Sims to come buy food? Right now I have it set as a cafeteria, since there's no bakery or restaurant option.

Those are the only questions I have really. Thanks!

Cinderellimouse

1. If you are building a bakery on a lot you own, just build a fence or wall with a door/gate and click on it to select which sims can go through.

There is also a mod that allows you to lock doors on community lots (available at Mod the Sims), which is very handy.

The barrier system is a very useful pc item, but it might not be the best thing to use in this instance. It's more for charging sims to use certain lots.

2. This is a bit of a nuisance, but you have to drag the pies in and out of your inventory. It can be tricky to get the food back out of the displays but you just move the camera to the back-side of the stand and click directly on the food to grab it.

You can auto-stock the shelves with the 'Cupcake' mod from Nraas Industries, but I find this is more useful for bakeries you want to visit rather than owned bakeries, because it's a bit cheaty.

Yes you can sell any prepared food from the stands. So pizzas and teppanyaki steak, etc. I made a pizza restaurant, you can see it in my studio. You cannot sell raw ingredients without mods. I recommend Ani's savvier seller mod for this.

4. I'm not sure about this. I think cafeteria is a good choice, I usually set it to 'market'. I hear 'hangout' does not work as well.

Much of this is just playing around and finding out what works for you. I have made quite a few bakeries and I treat each one differently. This is probably why you are confused, people are giving conflicting advice depending on the method they prefer. I'd recommend having a test run.

Also, Weealbet has a nice review and speed build of his own bakery. In the speed build he goes into details of things you can do and problems you might face. It might be handy.

Speed build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFuHz2huNcU&list=UUoR9Ip7wTdTPmLPOQplBYmQ

Review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx30iRXxGrk&list=UUoR9Ip7wTdTPmLPOQplBYmQ

I steal *cough* I mean adopt many of his ideas!

Karritz

I find the barrier to entry works well. You have a lot of options to choose from when setting the locks. Only a few of them involves Sims having a ticket to get through the door.

I've been setting my bakeries to hangout and getting lots of customers.

The only bakery I have problems with are the ones with a residence and bakery on the same lot.

If you put anything in the fridge in a hangout you can't get it out again. Sometimes Sims bake something and put it into the fridge immediately. That can be a bit annoying. I tend to avoid having a fridge on a commercial lot for this reason.

There are a few dishes that won't go into the bakery displays but most do.

If you bake at home you don't need to go into buy mode to place things into the displays. I use genies to summon food at home because I find baking with the oven boring after a while.

Evenstar606

Thank you both for the suggestions! Last night I tried the Buy Mode way of stocking the shelves after my Sim baked items. It was pretty tedious and I got bored after only baking a few things. I would bake something, wait for the Sim to set it on the counter, then hurry up and enter buy mode to place it on the display. Then bake something again and do the whole process all over. So maybe next time I'll try cooking from home and taking it all to the bakery. But I did get a lot of customers and everything sold fast! Probably because I only had about three things on the shelf at one time.

Now, if my Sim actually OWNS the lot the bakery is on, can I lock certain Sims out of rooms?

Eehna

Check the youtube speed link, it all explains how to run a bakery from a home lot.

Karritz

Evenstar606 wrote:

Thank you both for the suggestions! Last night I tried the Buy Mode way of stocking the shelves after my Sim baked items. It was pretty tedious and I got bored after only baking a few things. I would bake something, wait for the Sim to set it on the counter, then hurry up and enter buy mode to place it on the display. Then bake something again and do the whole process all over. So maybe next time I'll try cooking from home and taking it all to the bakery. But I did get a lot of customers and everything sold fast! Probably because I only had about three things on the shelf at one time.

Now, if my Sim actually OWNS the lot the bakery is on, can I lock certain Sims out of rooms?

When I bake at home, I put it all into the Sim's inventory, then I move the camera to the bakery and move the items from the Sim's inventory to the bakery displays. Meantime, the sim can be paused, or baking more items for the bakery. They don't have to go to the bakery, only you do. It is a lot faster that way.

I find having the Sim own the bakery works best for me. Otherwise I need to have to cupcake mod and I don't usually have mods in my game.