Alright, I did start a new save, I did though pass on the hand holding choice, the only difference from my earlier play, I have max cooking and customer happiness at this point and all the upgrades. Its funny on the lapdance cause I have 396 lewdness atm and it has not happened yet about 150 days in.
I added a file upload section to the feedback forum. That should work, here's the link: https://forms.gle/dULsJQxNkjhkKUUa6
Thanks!
Okay- I figured it out.
To progress the restaurant upgrade story you have to progress through the beginning of Nim's and Elena's stories a bit. It looks like you never ran out of ingredients so you never went through the beginning of Elena's story- the one where she drops off groceries. And then she comes back and delivers groceries again later, after that you can upgrade the diner. I'll think about removing those requirements from upgrading the diner to meet Maple since it isn't really necessary that they happen in order, but it highlights the fact that I should probably add some kind of hint or quest log if stories are going to trigger off each other.
Thank you for finding this issue for me though! I'll figure out some sort of solution to keep it from happening in other story lines and to other players!
Ok, I am having that as a challenge for fun to be honest, not letting her help me with better stocking of food. But since you are thinking of removing it as a block for main quest, consider, maybe it could lead into a different route, not the first time but if it keeps happening.
Anyway, this is a fun little thing, I hope you have fun making it.