Running a pizza shop seemed easier from the outside

The sauce is burning. There’s a pizza in the oven. Someone is waiting at the counter, the phone is ringing, and your friend has disappeared with the scooter.

Welcome to Ciao Pizza.

Run a pizza shop alone or with up to three friends, where every order starts as a ball of dough and ends — hopefully — in the hands of the right customer.

Make every pizza yourself

Press the dough. Ladle the sauce. Grate the cheese. Add every topping by hand, then slide the pizza into the oven.

Pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, pineapple, if it’s on the ticket, somebody has to put it there.

Every order goes through your hands from start to finish.

Just don’t forget what you left in the oven.

Something always needs your attention

Customers are lining up. The sauce is still on the burner. The soda fountain is almost empty. A phone order just came in. And somewhere behind you, a pizza is becoming charcoal. You only have two hands.

Good luck.

Bring friends. Blame them later.

Play alone or with up to three friends in drop-in co-op.

Split the work. One cooks, one handles customers, two takes deliveries.

Or all four of you can crowd around the same pizza while everything else falls apart.

That works too.

Take the pizza across town

Some customers won’t come to you.

Grab the scooter and deliver their order yourself, weaving across the city while the pizza gets colder with every wrong turn. Or send the delivery robot down the road while you stay behind and deal with the next disaster.

Take too long and the food gets cold.

Keep the customers happy

Customers queue to order, pay, and collect their food.

Keep them waiting too long and their patience starts to disappear. Forget their drink, or hand over something cold and your reputation takes the hit.

You can also pick them up and carry them outside.

This is rarely good for business.

Try not to run out of everything

Ingredients empty. Drinks run dry. Supplies disappear faster than you expect.

Keep the shop stocked, keep the orders moving, and unlock more of the menu as your business grows.

More menu means more options.

It also means more things to forget.

Keep the shop alive

Good orders build your popularity.

Cold food, missing items, failed deliveries, and angry customers create complaints and damage your reputation.

And sooner or later, rent is due.

Apparently chaos is not an accepted form of payment.

If you can pick it up, you can probably throw it

Ingredients. Boxes. Tools. Trays. Crates.

Carry them. Stack them. Drop them. Throw them across the kitchen.

Throw a pineapple at whoever is complaining.

Throw the supplies by accident.

Carry a customer out the door.

Running a restaurant is about making decisions.