][1]Around New Year, the 5pm blog looked back at the trends which have shaped food culture over the last decade. We noted that back in 2000, the thought of going to a food festival to watch chefs cook might have seemed odd. Well, Enlight software have gone one further and produced a catering simulation game called Restaurant Empire.
I’ve only just stumbled across its successor, Restaurant Empire II, but the original came out in 2003. It allows would-be Ramsay’s to build, design and manage your own restaurant chain. I guess it’s like Football Manager in that you have to marshall your resources, command a team and massage the expectations of your fans and customers. I expect that spitroast has a different meaning in each context but we’ll move on swiftly from that.
Restaurant Empire II came out in 2008 and its forum boards are still active so someone out there must be playing it. The question is: who? I can’t imagine that many restaurant managers are getting home at 1am after a hard day wrangling staff, recalcitrant chefs and their VAT return and thinking ‘Hmm, how can I relax? Restaurant Empire. Now there’s an idea.’