In my game I'm finding problems with the restaurants, in the one my sim runs and in the ones she visits.
They always seem to be empty - I might get 2 or 3 guests at each time, and she's running a big restaurant that looks completley dead. Is there any cheat/mod to increase the amount of sims, or will it increase once the restaurant goes up the rankings?

Secondly, sims always visit my restaurant by themselves, there is never any dates or groups that visit and it looks stupid with one sim sitting in a 6 seat table. Is there anyway to encourage couples to visit?

I always thought the sims 2 restaurants were thriving when I used to play years ago, but they seem really dead.

> Lots that your sims run in OFB are usually going to be small visitor counts, because in OFB you occasionally get a mystery shopper, and there's only so much one sim can do if you're running it by yourself. I think you get more as your rank goes up.

> You need to invite your own sims to a social group (fun or outing doesnt matter) by Ask... To form a casual group... For an outing.../ Just for fun... to make them all sit together on a table. Occasionally a couple comes around in my game as friends. Townies don't date other townies unless you force them to I think

You can use the "intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims [number]" cheat to control the maximum Sims on lot limit. I have "intProp maxNumOfVisitingSims 12" in my userstartup.cheat file and it keeps my community lots, businesses, and home parties going instead of looking awkward with three customers in a gigantic department store.

I must have a hack then, because I easily get 10+ customers in my shops. And I have since trying my very first shop. Weird!

It might also be worth having a look at this old thread on successful OFB restaurants. (I especially remember the thread because it's one of the first places where I posted a reply when I was new to this forum.)

When you first open a shop the game is set to 3 customers and if you have a couple trying to run a place with no badges you really don't want more than 3 customers as they won't be able to keep up with them. Sims are not patient creatures they will throw down bags or walk off throwing you black negatives if you keep them waiting. If you have badges or enough employees to handle more you can use the customer selector to set the amount of sims who arrive. As to groups, you can only do that when your playable sim is in the group visiting a restaurant. So you go on a date or form a group, travel to a restaurant and they will seat you. As the owner of the restaurant you are dealing with one sim at a time. You can't make unplayables come as a group because you're not controlling them, sims don't ask other sims on dates autonomously. It's always been that way.

Where is the customer selector in the game?

I think they're referring to the hack at More Awesome Than You. Have a look around there.

Thank you

The game will use your computer specs to work out how many sims your computer can handle on one lot. Problem is, it's not very good at telling. Partly it's overcautious to prevent crashes, and partly it finds it hard to detect newer graphics cards which weren't released when your latest expansion pack came out. So the cheat that k6ka mentions will allow you to override this limit. (This also affects the number of sims you can invite to a party). I have mine set to 14 and my game is fine on a mid-range, not that new computer. It's a good idea to test it first on a big/laggy lot if you have the number set high, because if it's too high then you'll get lag and possibly crashes.

I set it to 18 and it bug reports kept popping up with options to destroy sims or cancel! I accidentally deleted my sim, so I brought it back to 12 and its running fine again.