Pao Pao Tools and Kitchen Equipment Guide: Stations, Prices and Upgrades

Better kitchen stations cook faster, and the right tool tier opens up new materials. The Kitchen Equipment Shop sells every station, sink and table on this page, and the Tool Shop sells the axes, pickaxes, shovels, mops and other hand tools. Most of the stock unlocks with restaurant stars, so check the restaurant stars guide for when each item appears.

Kitchen Equipment

You start with two Ingredient Boxes, a Table, a Table for One and a Stove in your restaurant equipment, ready to place. Everything else comes from the Kitchen Equipment Shop. Its stock never runs out, so you can buy as many copies of a station as you have room for.

How Cooking Stations Work

Every cooking station runs a timer. Put the ingredients in and they cook in the station’s Cook Time. You can cook several ingredients at once, and adding one more while the timer runs only sets it back by a few seconds (5 s on a Stove, 3 s in an Oven) instead of starting over.

Take the food out once it’s done. On most stations a finished dish starts to burn after a short wait (Food Burns), and a burnt dish catches fire a few seconds later (Fire Starts). If you don’t put the fire out with the Fire Extinguisher, the station explodes (Explodes) and you have to repair it.

Most stations can also malfunction while they cook. The game runs a check every few seconds (Check Every), and each check has a small Chance per Check to fail: a Stove bursts into flames on its own, while a Mixer breaks down. After a malfunction, the next few checks (Safe Checks After One) can’t fail, and if a station gets all the way to the check in Sure by Check without failing, that check fails for sure. Interact with a broken or exploded station to repair it, which takes the Repair Time.

Cooking Stations

The second table shows how often each station malfunctions.

Which Station to Buy

Every upgrade malfunctions less often than the station it replaces and repairs in 6 s, so the question is how closely you can watch it.

• Fast Stove (3 stars) and Fast Deep Fryer (5 stars): buy them once orders pile up. They cook in 7 s, about twice as fast, but food burns 3 s after it’s done and catches fire 3 s after that. A dish you forget on a Fast Stove is on fire in about 6 seconds.
• Microwave Oven (4 stars): an easy upgrade over the Oven. It cooks in 13 s, and when it malfunctions it breaks down instead of catching fire, so a bad roll only costs you a 6 s repair. Burnt food left inside can still catch fire.
• Mixers: if the Mixer sits right next to your prep area, the Fast Mixer (5 stars) cooks in 7 s. It’s also the only mixer that can burn food. If you tend to leave the Mixer running while you serve, get the Quality Mixer (6 stars) instead. It’s only 2 s faster than the basic Mixer, but it’s the only shop station that never burns food or malfunctions.

Sinks

Dirty plates pile up as you serve, and the sink is where you wash them. Sinks clog now and then, and you have to clear the clog before you can wash again.

The Upgraded Sink washes a plate in 2.5 s instead of 5 s, and clearing a clog takes 6 s instead of 10 s.

Tables and Other Furniture

Player Tools

The Tool Shop sells each tool once. You start with the Fire Extinguisher and the Old Mop.

Gathering Tools

Axes chop trees and bamboo, pickaxes break rocks, and shovels dig garden beds and tree stumps. A tool works on its own tier and every tier below it, and a higher tier is faster on the lower tiers.

These are the trees and rocks you can gather and how long each takes, without Foraging perks.

Trees and Bamboo leave a stump behind. Dig it up with any shovel for 1-2 more of the same material.

Mops and the Fire Extinguisher

Spills pile up in the dining room as you serve, and the Neat Freak customer won’t eat until the place is clean. A better mop cleans each spill faster.

Special Tools

Three tools handle troublesome customers, so buy each one as soon as its customer starts showing up (see new customers). The UV Flashlight comes from a quest.

Watering Cans and Fishing Rods

The Tool Shop also sells the watering cans and fishing rods. The farming guide explains what each watering can does, and the fishing guide shows which fish need the better rods.