Over the course of a day, including periods of high activity, the player must cook requested orders and perform various cleanup and sanitary tasks within a limited amount of time.

Doing all the steps correctly and on time helps the player's score, while making mistakes can harm the restaurant's reputation.

As the player completes each day, they earn in-game money that can be used to buy new recipes to add to the menu; part of the metagame is to continue to vary the restaurant's menu to draw in new customers, thus requiring a wide array of recipes.

[7] The game greatly expands the quantity of foods that can be cooked, increasing from 30 dishes, to over 180.

2 allows players to decorate and update their own restaurant with a variety of art, wallpapers and other furniture.

2 also introduces a Chef for Hire system; which allows the player to work at over thirty restaurants, each with its own theme and menu,[7] and a new local co-op game mode.

The game also introduces the previously mentioned Holding Stations, which allows for food to be pre-prepared before customers arrive.

However, GameSpew also stated that the customization of the player's kitchen feature was "particularly unnecessary" and did not use the function very often.