Hello, I'm Martha Stewart and I'm going to tell you about how I set up my first branch of "Martha's Kitchen". It's all quite simple. Firstly, I found some cheap real estate and bought it. John and I went there, beautified the place and then I got down to work in the kitchen.

Any regular stove will do when you are preparing something for sale in a bakery. When you click on the fridge, there are new options up for food resale. These are "Make ..." and "Make many ...", which both bring up submenus of what type of food you wish to make and whether you wish to make group servings or just individual portions. Your options are limited to the level of your cooking. I'd be making cheesecake if I knew the recipe. It is now official that cheesecake is the food that helps you bring twins into the world. For those of you who thought that it was cookies who helped you bring twins into the world, you were misinformed.

Anyway, I set about preparing many servings of spaghetti with my unique "Marthalade" © sauce toppings. Thanks to those guys at TSZ during SB4, I got quite a bit of exposure for this latest recipe. Hopefully, now it is up for sale, the customers would snap it up.

Cooking servings takes time. A food processor would cut the time down on making some meals. Once I had made about six of them, I placed them in the display counters. Any normal counter would do, but ultimately they will go bad. That is why for any place that sells food, it is best to use the Decra-Chill display counter.

Then we made sure we opened up. After a while, I noticed that my goods were not selling. So we called the expert over. Dr. Phil was quite blunt in what he had to say. I wished John had kicked him out.

"It's so simple that anyone with any common sense could see it. Mark them up for sale!" Once this was done, they sold very quickly indeed and John was rushed off his feet ringing up the purchases. With the counters being empty, we had to quickly close the business for the day as empty shelves tend to bring down your environment score and you can lose customer loyalty that way.

So the lessons from running a bakery are as follows.

As well as being able to sell food for your customers to eat at home, your sims can now run their own restaurant. Restaurants are a concept that was first seen in Nightlife and always seemed to run quite smoothly.

If your sims wish to run their own restaurant, it is not so simple.

In order to run one, you need a podium for the host who welcomes customers to the restaurant and shows them to their seats. The podium also serves as the base to set prices and decide what is on the menu. It is also the "workstation" where you assign two of the primary staff positions. Seating, logically, is another requirement. Also, a surface for the customers to eat their meals from is also essential. This could either be a counter or a table. Finally, you need the two-tile Tempest Cooktop for the chef to cook the meals.

In order to run a restaurant, different staff are required. As with any business, family members from teen upwards - children won't work - are cheap labour, they don't expect a pay rise, nor do they quit. You could run a low-level restaurant with one person, but it would be very hard work indeed.

Firstly, you need a chef. High cooking skills here are what matters as the higher the cooking, you will able to plan a larger menu and serve meals of a higher quality.

Secondly, you need a host to greet the guests and seat them. Low-skilled hosts tend to spend a lot of their time on the telephone before they actually get around to greeting the customers.

Thirdly. you need someone to serve the guests with their meals and take the empty plates away. Low-skilled servers can be quite clumsy and may drop the meals. This may seem to be very amusing but it can be very bad for business.

With the ability to plan your menu, you get some greater control over what meals are available to the customers. Even with high cooking skills, you can choose to theme your restaurants. A branch of McSimmy's ® is hardly likely to serve lobster unless there is a way to put it in a sesame seed bun, topped with a special BBQ sauce, served with a side order of fries and a well- iced diet soda.

What any budding restaurant entrepreneur needs to remember is that your new 0-level business only attracts 3 customers at any time and it may take time before this increases. Therefore, having a dozen seats either at counters or tables means that you have "surplus to requirements". It also means that before the rush, you can double-up some of your staff or even get one person doing everything. Your host can also be your server but once trade increases, they may be rushed off their feet in trying to keep everyone happy all of the time. Personally, I'd rather keep the chef in the kitchen.

This is the only type of business where skills can be built up. Being the server helps build your body and a high body skill to start with is an advantage. Also, the higher the value of your chef's cooking skills, the better it is for the restaurant and the customers.