Tasty Chef Menu Planner

A wide board feels generous and then wrecks a rating. This planner is a practical checklist for the milk tea Set Menu screen: which drinks to enable, how hard to cap toppings, whether ice is Off or Custom, and which Practice button to press first. Use it beside the live shop, not as a theorycraft for restaurants Tasty Town still marks under construction.

Steam published the demo in September 2026 as a Milk Tea Shop slice. Some recipes and features are missing. Plan only the four drinks official shots toggle: Milk Tea, Matcha Milk Tea, Lemon Black Tea, and Coconut Milk. When bakery or sushi leaves “under construction,” add a new board — do not stretch this tea list over a rice cooker. Drink identities also sit on recipes. Floor consequences sit on the kitchen flow planner.

The board you can actually toggle

Each drink is a pair of ingredients plus optional ice and toppings:

• Milk Tea — tea leaves plus milk. Default trainer drink. Enable first.
• Matcha Milk Tea — matcha plus milk. Needs a Matcha Tea Brewer on the line, not a wish.
• Lemon Black Tea — tea plus lemon. Shares the Black Tea Brewer with Milk Tea, then branches to lemon.
• Coconut Milk — coconut plus milk. Punishes you if the coconut crate is across the dining room.

Ice is Off or Custom. Toppings include Boba, Jelly, Red Bean, Coconut Jelly, Chia Seeds, and Pudding. Maximum toppings can be 0, 1, 2, or 3. A +60% style bonus on that screen is a reminder that a focused board pays. It is not a reason to enable six toppings on day one.

Checklist: which drinks to enable

Work this list in order. Do not skip ahead because a screenshot showed all four icons lit.

1. Enable Milk Tea only. Play a full shift. If you cannot finish S and L cups without watching the ticket art, stop. Read how to play and getting started before you widen the board.
2. Enable Matcha Milk Tea when a Matcha Tea Brewer already sits on the walking corridor. If matcha is a detour behind decor, leave the drink off.
3. Enable Lemon Black Tea when a lemon crate sits on the warehouse wall, not in the dining room. Lemon shares tea with Milk Tea; the extra walk is the fruit, not the brewer.
4. Enable Coconut Milk last. Coconut is a different base. It needs its own crate discipline and a milk dispenser that is not already slammed by two milk drinks.

A sane demo board is two drinks: Milk Tea plus Matcha, or Milk Tea plus Lemon. Four drinks with a three-topping cap is a late-shop flex, not a tutorial.

Checklist: topping cap

Toppings are extra walks to the topping station. Cap them before you decorate them.

• Max 0. Use this when you are learning brew order or when ice is already Custom and you cannot spare a third station. Cups become tea-plus-milk (or lemon/coconut) and maybe ice. Rating is easier to protect.
• Max 1. Default for a new shop. Pick Boba or Jelly as the single enabled topping so staff are not rolling a six-sided die. Leave Red Bean, Coconut Jelly, Chia Seeds, and Pudding off.
• Max 2. Unlock when ice and toppings sit at the end of the corridor and a second body (you, a friend, or Make & Serve staff) owns that end. See hiring staff and co-op.
• Max 3. Only after Practice has been pressed on every enabled drink and the topping station is not a bottleneck. Three toppings on four drinks is how tickets die in the ice chest.

Enable toppings as a short list, not a museum. A practical first trio later in the demo is Boba, Jelly, Pudding. Save Coconut Jelly for a Coconut Milk board so the crate story matches the ticket art. Chia Seeds and Red Bean can wait until the line is boring.

Checklist: ice Off or Custom

• Ice Off while you learn cup, tea, milk, serve. Removing ice shortens the sentence and lets you test whether brewers and milk are the real problem.
• Ice Custom once the ice chest sits at the pass, not beside the Town door. Custom means tickets may ask for ice. That is a station, not a garnish.

Do not run Ice Custom with Max 3 toppings and four drinks on a solo first day. That combination is how solo play turns into a sprint. Turn one of those three knobs down.

Practice order

The Set Menu screen gives each drink a Practice button. Use it in this order, even if all four drinks are already enabled from a messy save:

1. Practice Milk Tea until the hands know cup → black tea → milk → (ice) → (topping).
2. Practice Matcha Milk Tea until you stop walking to the black tea brewer by habit.
3. Practice Lemon Black Tea until lemon is a crate you can find with a Stock Alert up.
4. Practice Coconut Milk last, because coconut is the odd base and will expose a bad warehouse wall.

Practice is faster than wiping a spoiled ticket in a full dining room. If a drink still feels foreign after one Practice run, disable it for the next shift. The kitchen layout guide will not save a drink you cannot build in a quiet room.

Shift policy card (copy this)

Write these four lines on paper or in a notes app before Start Service:

• Drinks on: ____ / ____ (max two until the rating holds).
• Toppings on: ____ (max count: 0 / 1 / 2 / 3).
• Ice: Off / Custom.
• Practice done tonight: ____.

Play five tickets. If two of them stall on the same extra ingredient, that ingredient is off the board tomorrow. Gold from a bloated menu is a trap; the star rating is the long game. End Shift and edit the board. There is no prize for selling pudding on day two.

When the board and the floor disagree

If Coconut Milk is on but the coconut crate is behind a Cup Rack, you did not finish planning — you only finished the menu UI. Open the kitchen flow planner and move the crate. If Matcha is on but nobody has a Matcha Tea Brewer in the aisle, disable the drink. If staff keep making drinks nobody ordered, you have a duty problem, not a recipe problem — rank Take Orders versus Make & Serve on the staff roles list.

What this planner will not enable

It will not add sushi plates, bakery pastries as a full venue, or a pizzeria board. Those shops are announced or previewed; they are not the demo’s Set Menu. Pastry extras that appear beside a tea ticket are side items, not a second restaurant. Keep this page boring on purpose. Boring menus finish. Confirm the PC still holds a shift on system requirements if the HUD hitches, then return to the tools hub when you need hardware or flow instead.