Transparent formula
Seating pressure = max(waiting customers − open usable seats, 0)
Kitchen pressure = max(waiting orders − active stoves, 0)
The larger score determines the recommendation. A positive tie means reassign and observe; a zero/zero result means no active pressure.
Worked example
If 7 customers wait while 3 seats are open, seating pressure is 4. If 2 orders wait while 2 stoves are active, kitchen pressure is 0. The visible bottleneck is seating.
What happens when there are more seats than waiting customers?
With 2 waiting customers and 5 open usable seats, seating pressure is max(2 − 5, 0) = 0. With 3 waiting orders and 1 active stove, kitchen pressure is max(3 − 1, 0) = 2. The model points to kitchen pressure; it does not report negative seating pressure.
This remains the site's planning heuristic, not a creator-published game formula or a guaranteed upgrade result.