Chef Archive

Greetings fellow one char/10 lots person!

I have built what I consider to be a very successful operation based on 3 principles:

1. Schmooze. Make friends, be a friend, help those who seem sincere and cut off at the knees those who seem to want to make only Brandy with no interest in the development of their role or those who want you to hand your resources over to them on a silver platter.

2. Form Business partnerships, and pursue the Merchant line up the Advertising tree to "Planetary" and Hiring IV. Evaluate requests for you to place vendors carefully, choose your markets wisely, and choose your partners wisely -- but don't be afraid to pursue business relationships. This is part of the game. I have vendors in 5 businesses that are not my lots, including a prominent one in a busy cantina and a sole vendor in a tent that was provided to me in a PvP city.

3. Recognition that one person cannot provide all of their profession's needs. You *will* be dependant on Tailors, BEs, and Resource providers. Hopefully, you belong to a PA. But even a PA is no guarantee of steady resources and income -- mine is half and half, and my guild BE charges me more than my #1 BE partner -- but my guild BE is also very reliable and understands the value of providing the additives in large quantity.

I have a medium house, and heavy miners for water, radioactive, and two for flora (which right now are fruit and berries, because although I make *all* the foods, I would be foolish to deny that Brandy is my main income producer and I want control over the quality of those resources and their availability). The city I live in has city resource harvesters donated by citizens and run to keep the city tax-free -- they are inexpensive, and I buy my gemstone from them at 3cpu, which they are willing to keep surveyed and supplied to me for the steady income. I buy Trim from 3 Tailors at present, and have recently developed a contact with a Tailor who seems to understand the value of providing this in large quantities to me. Additives from 3 BEs. All other resources from the bazaar, shopping malls in towns, players yelling in starports, etc. I am rabid about keeping my cpu as low as possible, but also at keeping it fair to all. If you take advantage of someone, they will not provide what you need when they eventually realize they've been hosed.

My other four lots are factories. One runs alcohol nearly all the time. One runs dough, pastebread, carbosyrup, bantha butter and other subs. One runs casks, glasses, and nutrients. One is pretty much set aside for Brandy, but I also juggle in Canape, Thakatillo, Sythsteak and Ithorian Mist as well as other buff foods and profession foods. I try to keep them organized, but most of the time they get into easy dishevelment and I'malways moving stuff around in them.

I spend way too much time doing this -- but it's a lot of fun for me! My goals are good foods, good service and fair prices and my customers know that while I may not always have the very best Brandy on the server, I do try very hard to make it so while also keeping the prices down and the supply steady. When my prices on BE additives dropped, I reduced the price of my Brandy. I don't wear my Chef tag too much these days, cause I see so many rip-off meister chefs out there now -- but I'm betting they don't stay around long. I am very pleased to be a Chef, though -- and willing to spend 90% of my quite ample gaming time playing the Chef game.