Head chef of the Corner Café — a restaurant his late father opened and named, and one Carby is now determined to reinvent into something with foam, dust, and a glossary. He renames the hamburger "Hand-formed Bovine Expression," plates patty melts on slate, and physically cannot say the word "burger." Underneath the culinary pretension is grief he hasn't finished: his father ran the place on showing up and knowing everyone's coffee order, and Carby is still trying to figure out how to be him without becoming him. A three-year-old review calling his kitchen "in mourning for its own past" hit closer than he admits, which puts him squarely on the suspect list when that same critic collapses at Table 7.
Carries a running physical bit: an oversized chef's hat that slips, falls, and gets meticulously readjusted throughout the show — the hat is his tell. Requires an actor who can pivot from high-comic intensity (a eulogy for overcooked short ribs) to genuine stillness (the monologue about his father's apron). Gender flexible with minor adjustments; plays as the same generation as Ricky, his cousin. Age range roughly 30s–50s. Comic timing and sustained in-character improvisation with audience members are essential; singing is ensemble-level.

Front-of-house manager and Carby's cousin — the one keeping the Corner Café functional while everyone around him reinvents it into the ground. Ricky is the show's deadpan engine: he remembers every regular by table, day, and pickle preference, delivers the running commentary on the chaos ("That's not cooking. That's arson with confidence"), and involuntarily says "God bless you" every time someone addresses Ah-Choo by name. He mourns the lost regulars the way Carby mourns his father — Tommy Kowalski, Table 4, Tuesdays, extra pickles, now sending passive-aggressive Christmas cards featuring photographs of normal burgers.
Ricky reads as the innocent observer until Act Two, when it emerges he intercepted the critic's dish, tore pages from the reservation book, and knew Saffron Sterling's name on sight — she once reviewed the café as "pleasantly forgettable," which he calls worse than bad. The role needs an actor with precise deadpan timing who can also flip credibly into defensiveness when the suspicion lands on him. Much of Ricky's material is direct address and audience-adjacent — he delivers food to the participant playing Saffron Sterling and fields the customer's questions about the restaurant's name — so comfort working the room is essential. Gender flexible with minor adjustments; same generation as Carby. Age range roughly 30s–50s. Singing is ensemble-level.

Sous chef — precise, meticulous, and perpetually convinced that someone is stealing his equipment, which is always in his own pocket, under his own seat, or inside his own hat. Ah-Choo labels everything in the kitchen ("Ladle A"), narrates his losses in escalating panic, and speaks with a formal, contraction-free precision that makes his paranoia funnier the more carefully he articulates it. His name powers one of the show's central running gags: every time someone says it, somebody reflexively responds "God bless you" / "Gesundheit" / "Salud." The joke is entirely verbal wordplay on the name itself — it is not written as, and should not be played with, an accent or ethnic caricature. The character can be cast from any background.
Ah-Choo is also the mystery's primary red herring. Five years ago a critic's review destroyed his cousin's four-generation restaurant and stopped his uncle cooking forever — and tonight Ah-Choo has foraged the mushrooms himself, insisted on the risotto, and greeted the news that Saffron Sterling is a critic with a quiet, chilling "Good." The role needs an actor who can sustain frantic physical comedy (the whisk search, the pocket-patting) while landing the Salvatore's monologue with real bitterness — the show's misdirection depends on the audience half-believing he did it. Gender flexible with minor adjustments. Age range open, roughly 20s–50s. Comfort with in-character improvisation during the mingle is essential; singing is ensemble-level, and he gets a featured verse in the Act One closer.

A relentlessly cheerful celebrity chef with a unique relationship to reality. Betsy burned water her first week ("it was over-hydrated"), quotes an ever-expanding family tree of brand mascots as beloved relatives and mentors — Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, the Quaker Oats Man, her cousin the All-State Man — and enters every scene mid-song, radiating a sunshine that the rest of the staff has learned to fear. Recently demoted from the kitchen to "hospitality hostess," she drifts back anyway, humming, adjusting plates, making things prettier. Her cheerfulness never breaks. That's the role: the comedy and the unease come from the same unwavering smile.
Betsy carries the largest singing load in the show, including the opening "Walking on Sunshine" parody with dance and audience business, and a featured Act Three number that is the evening's centerpiece — she needs the strongest comic-vocal performer in the company, though charm and commitment matter more than polish. The part rewards an actor who can play total sincerity with zero winking: Betsy believes everything she says, and the show works best when the audience can't decide whether she's harmless. Written as female. Age range open, roughly 30s–60s. Heavy audience interaction during the mingle and throughout service; improvisation skills essential.

A high-energy restaurant consultant from a reality-TV rescue show — all volume, aggression, and unearned certainty. Tougher renames the restaurant four times over the course of the evening (Cornerstone Experience, Carby's Critter Fritters, Corner Solutions, and worse), hands out fresh name tags with each pivot, lays an actual breadcrumb trail across the floor as an "efficiency map," and delivers a two-page motivational aria composed entirely of soda-brand wordplay that builds from controlled pacing to full crescendo — a genuine set piece, and the natural audition selection for the role. His catchphrase economy runs on making people call him "Chef" while insisting he isn't one.
Tougher is also the mystery's engine in Act Two: he does his research, produces the three-year-old review, and drives the accusations from suspect to suspect — while remaining suspiciously calm about the body, suspiciously prepared for failure, and suspiciously attached to a rebrand called "The Scene of the Crime Café." Three restaurants he rescued no longer exist. The role needs an actor with the vocal stamina to sustain shouting-adjacent intensity without becoming genuinely unpleasant — the character is a cartoon of pressure, not a portrait of abuse — and the precision to drop into quiet, deliberate menace when the interrogation turns. He works the audience directly, including the Act Two guessing-break address and the participant playing Barb Dwyer. Gender flexible with minor adjustments. Age range roughly 35–60. Singing is featured but talk-heavy (the "End of the World" verse is rhythmic patter). Improvisation essential.