In Road-Side Shawarma, the phone on the back counter is as important as the meat trompo or the fridge. Every night starts and ends with a call, and one optional number during Night Two can decide whether you walk away from a dangerous customer. Treating those calls as background flavor is the fastest way to die.
Where the phone is and what it actually does
The food stand has a fixed landline phone in the back area, close to the storeroom where you restock ingredients. You never dial it for normal orders; it only matters in three situations:
- The nightly briefing from your manager before each shift.
- The final call that marks the end of Night Three.
- The special poster call during Night Two tied to the man with the trash bag.
Nothing else in the game lets you change the “rules” for the night. The phone is the channel for those rules, so if you miss a detail, the game still expects you to follow it.
Nightly manager calls and rule changes
Every shift begins with a call from your manager. Pick up and listen before you start rushing orders. That call tells you two things:
- Any new ingredients or drinks added to the menu for that night.
- New survival rules that override or extend what you did the previous night.
On the first night, you learn basic safety: fix the power outside if it cuts, and hand a Bloxy Cola to a particular stranger who shows up with no written order. On later nights, the rules become more specific and more lethal. For example, Night Two tells you how the siblings’ orders work and warns you about the Meat Trompo acting strangely. Night Three replaces the fuse-box run with a completely different response to blackouts: hide under the center table and close your eyes instead of going outside.
Ignoring the call does not stop the rules from applying; it just means you are guessing. If you treat the shift like a normal cooking game and ignore the ringing phone, you will eventually break a rule without understanding why you died.
The “phone number” that matters: the Trash Bag Man on Night Two
There is only one time you actively use a phone number in Road-Side Shawarma, and that is during Night Two.
Partway through the night, a ghostly figure appears at your service window. Instead of ordering food, it silently hands you a poster. That poster shows:
- A man holding a trash bag.
- A phone number you can call.
Once you pick the poster up, it doesn’t stay in your hands. It’s pinned next to the phone at the back of the stand, turning that area into a small decision point later in the shift.
Later, the man from the poster arrives as a regular-looking customer. You can tell it is him because he remarks about his trash bag. At that exact moment, the usual workflow—read the order on the whiteboard, assemble the shawarma, hand it over—is the wrong move. You are expected to step away from the window and make a call instead.
When the Trash Bag Man appears:
Step 1: Do not prepare or serve his order, even if the whiteboard lists it. Back away from the counter.
Step 2: Walk to the back of the stand where the phone and poster are pinned up.
Step 3: Interact with the phone to call the number printed on the poster.
That call resolves the encounter safely. Treating him like any other customer is effectively breaking the night’s unwritten rule and can end your run.
How the phone shifts your behavior between nights
The phone doesn’t just push story flavor; it changes how you respond to events you’ve already seen.
- Night One: Power cuts mean stepping outside to fix the fuse box. The phone tells you this is safe, and you follow it.
- Night Two: Power cuts still send you outside, but you also have to watch for the Meat Trompo moving or groaning. When that happens, you leave the kitchen and wait out back until the lights stabilize.
- Night Three: The same blackout sound no longer means “go outside.” The phone briefing replaces that habit with a new rule: hide under the center table and hold your eyes shut until power snaps back on.
The rules for supernatural events evolve in the same way. On Night Three, for example, the call prepares you for the dripping event. When black fluid appears at the top of your screen and begins to drip, the rule is simple: do not look up. The phone sets that condition in advance so you know to ignore the instinct to scan the ceiling.
This pattern turns the phone into a nightly contract: you agree to a small set of behaviors, and the game punishes you for sticking to the wrong night’s version of those rules.
What the phone does at the very end
After surviving Night Three’s escalating rules, the stand falls quiet, orders stop, and the phone rings one last time. Picking it up triggers your manager’s closing comments and signals that you have completed all three days.
That final call doubles as an ending beat and a small twist: you are congratulated for surviving, but the environment quietly reminds you that there is still no visible exit out of the stand. The phone, which guided you through all the rules, cannot get you out of the building.
Quick recap: how to treat every phone interaction
- Always answer the pre-shift call and listen for new rules or menu items.
- Memorize how the blackout response changes from fixing the fuse box to hiding under the center table.
- On Night Two, pick up the poster from the spirit so the Trash Bag Man’s callback number appears by the phone.
- When the Trash Bag Man talks about his bag, walk away from the window and use the phone to call the number instead of serving him.
- On Night Three, use the phone ringing at the end of the night as confirmation that you have cleared the run.
The stand’s cramped layout and rising tension make it tempting to focus only on lavash, toppings, and the whiteboard, but the phone is the real rulebook. Answering it—and dialing it exactly once—is what keeps Road-Side Shawarma from turning into a very short horror shift.
