So from my experience and understanding if you don't log into the game every day your customer flow seems to slow down. I've got friends who haven't played in over a decade and they still have plates of food that haven't been eaten. I highly doubt they made that much food to last 10 years. I've gone over it before, but a lot of the new foods are designed to stagnate your gold. The prep cost is a majority of the profit, so you end up paying most of your return up front to prepare it, and if you accidentally let it burn, you have to cook the same dish 3 times to even make back the cost of the prep, and that's still with no profit the entire time.
(Spooky Jack O Lantern Pie)
1 Hour cook time
940 Prep cost
350 Servings
1,400 Profit.
Reviewing this dish and with a little math (1,400 profit Minus 940 prep) you find that you'll only make a profit of 460 coins. This is only after you sell all 350 dishes. The more you make the even more this problem compounds upon itself.
Look at literally any of the new event dishes it's always the same story, 1 hour, 960 prep, 350 servings, 1,400 profit. Meanwhile if we look on the Lab stove we're using from this event we can see an old dish
(Polar Powder Puffs)
1 hour cook time
260 cost
200 servings
800 coins profit.
If you just compare the two, obviously the newer dish makes more right? 1,400 coins Total profit? that's higher than 800 coins!
No actually because you have to include prep costs. With this in mind the new dish you served (Jack O Pie) only made a profit of 460. Meanwhile the old dish (Polar Powder Puffs) makes 540 after you subtract the prep cost from the initial 800 profit. That's a larger profit and with only 200 dishes to sell, you'll earn those coins in close to half the time. It gets even worse if you farm the new dishes to 4 mastery.
Attached Below is a copy of my personal Google docs where i keep and record the dishes available to me personally. Feel free to use this as a reference to glance over, or make a copy to use for yourself. I'm sorry that there might be some personal data on this, like my favourite dishes. But it should be helpful enough. If you save a copy you can sort the different rows by (A -> Z) or (Z ->A) to compare profits, dishes, hours, or whatever you might need. Anyone here can feel free to use this for their own benefit. This copy will however, not be updated.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing