Butler, from now on you shall never cook again!

[Leto85]

I've mentioned this in a few topics where people are having trouble with the butler cooking 2 times per hour, but because the reactions are still full of surprise I decided to make a separate topic for this, so anyone will know.
The butler is a fine person, really, but you just have to guide the good man a little bit.
So if you are having a kitchen with a door all you need to do is locking that door from the butler. That's all, easy as that. But because it's so easy, people may think about a solution in a more difficult way. See, not necessary.

Have fun with your staff!

[Huge]

Easy if you actually have a door. I much prefer open plan houses, If you can afford a butler, you can afford to learn to cook properly

[Simmerqueen]

That's a good solution but I don't think I'd want to listen to him stomping and complaining about not being able to get into the kitchen.

[Firestaar1]

That is a good idea, and honestly I never thought of that.  However I also like the open kitchen/ dining room, so my kitchens usually just have an entryway

[malteser60]

You could always design the kitchen so it has a walk-in fridge. That way you could only lock the fridge away.

[Firestaar1]

Another really good idea! Thank you!

[n8thegr8]

That's a good solution but I don't think I'd want to listen to him stomping and complaining about not being able to get into the kitchen.

Unlike the Maid, for some reason he will not do that. I have had my kitchen a mess, and he has not cared, and just tended to other things, almost as if he knew that it would be impossible to get in. When Leto first mentioned this in the other thread I said, "DUHHH! I am so stupid for not thinking of this."

[Hosfac]

I recently discovered this trick to keep everyone in the house from pestering those poor babies day and night.

This does give me another idea, however, as the butler is not the only person in the house with serious cooking issues.  

How many times have you ever had your level 10 cook make a perfect group meal of Lobster Thermidor, and one of the other knuckleheads in the house goes into the kitchen to whip up a tasty batch of mac-n-cheese (that he's probably going to burn anyways) while the already prepared meal is sitting right there on the counter?  Well...problem solved!

The walk-in fridge is genius.

[Leto85]

That's a good solution but I don't think I'd want to listen to him stomping and complaining about not being able to get into the kitchen.

Believe me, he won't.

[pinkcutie]

Butlers are a really cool new feature on LN but this cooking thing is really getting on my nerves. Once a butler left my 2 pairs of crying twins babies in there room and left to go make a key lime pie. 

[Hosfac]

I tried the butler out for the first time, and to be honest, I don't see what all the fuss is about.  He was rather well-behaved.  He only cooked once a day (granted he was cooking for vampires for the most part), he was very friendly, he gladly helped the teenager with her homework and he did all the housework before he took a break.  And the second something needed cleaning up, he was all over it.  There were no babies in the house at the time though.

Maybe you just get the bad butlers?

[AmeliaAnne]

I got a butler for a week - and then she vanished. I waited about half a generation until I finished all the food, and then got a butler again for a week. Again, we had a huge amount of food. At the end of that week, the butler vanished, I didn't pay them and they had made a great amount of amazing food.

Still, I think if it had continued, I would have been irate. I like the idea of the walk-in fridge though...

[galaxygal]

I think the Butler will cook anytime a household sim's hunger bar falls to about a 1/4 full.  I starting trying to keep hunger bars above 1/4 and I no longer have tons of leftovers in the fridge now

This walk-in fridge idea is brilliant though.  Thank you!

[Leto85]

I tried the butler out for the first time, and to be honest, I don't see what all the fuss is about.  He was rather well-behaved.  He only cooked once a day (granted he was cooking for vampires for the most part), he was very friendly, he gladly helped the teenager with her homework and he did all the housework before he took a break.  And the second something needed cleaning up, he was all over it.  There were no babies in the house at the time though.

Maybe you just get the bad butlers?

What are his (or her) traits? Because it could be because of that.
Besides that, maybe EA has fixed some bugs in a newly released patch which I haven see in the past time.

[Hosfac]

The only traits that I've learned about him so far are Neat and Friendly.