How To Play: Food Chain Magnate
Learn Food Chain Magnate’s employee restructuring, company actions, city demand and two-stage bank ending.
Food Chain Magnate puts you in charge of a restaurant company. Build an employee organisation, create demand across the city and sell food and drinks to earn the most money.
Setup
Follow the illustrated setup for your player count, including the city tiles, starting restaurant placement, available employee cards and milestones. This guide covers the third-printing base game.
Restructure your company
Food Chain Magnate uses employee cards to build a restaurant company. A round begins with simultaneous restructuring: players select working employees and arrange them under the CEO within the available management slots. Other employees are on the beach.
Turn order and employee actions
Players choose turn-order positions based on open company slots, with ties resolved by the previous order. Each company then performs its employees’ actions in the rulebook’s prescribed sequence; employees are not placed on action spaces on the city board. Recruiting, training, food production and marketing are distinct abilities governed by their cards.
Demand, sales and running the company
The city map connects restaurants, homes and marketing. Advertising creates demand, while production and access determine what a company can supply. The later phases handle sales, salaries, marketing and cleanup; consult their exact order and exceptions before teaching.
Ending and winning
The bank initially holds $50 per player. Each player secretly selects a reserve card. When the bank first empties, those reserves replenish it; when it empties again, the richest player wins.
Rulebook and teaching tips
Use the original third-printing base-game rulebook below for the illustrated setup, range rules, dinner-time calculations, milestones and individual card effects. When teaching, demonstrate one employee organisation and one sale calculation before the first round; these explain how the company and city interact.
Read our Food Chain Magnate review for a closer look at the game.