Food Chain Magnate
231 questions players ask about Food Chain Magnate. Pick one for the answer. See also the full rulebook.
Updated 2026-11-01.
Components and Setup
- How many personnel cards come in the box: 222 or 223?
- Which components are unlimited, and what if I run out of food, drink tokens or milestone cards?
- How many copies of each 1x employee card are used for each player count?
- Which employee types are used in a two-player game?
- Do the restriction rules for placing starting restaurants (adjacency, shared tile) apply later in the game?
- During setup, can two starting restaurants have their entrances on the same map tile?
- Must the starting restaurant's entrance touch a road?
- If a drink type has no source on the map in a 2-player game, do I rebuild the map?
- Are the 1x1 restaurant tiles used in the game?
Map, Roads and Distance
- How is distance or range counted from a restaurant to a house, and what counts as one step?
- Which tile is at range 0 for a restaurant whose entrance points toward another tile?
- How do drive-ins work for range, and can employees use the extra entrances?
- If a restaurant's entrance touches two roads, can staff leave by different roads?
- Does a restaurant's entrance have to be orthogonally next to a road?
- When a house or restaurant straddles two tiles, which tile counts for distance?
- Is a house connected to a restaurant when a road only touches the house?
- How do overpasses and bridges connect roads?
- What points are used for measuring distance for restaurants, marketing and drink sources?
Employees, Structure and Hiring
- Do busy marketeers occupy a slot when counting open slots?
- Are employee actions optional, or are any effects mandatory?
- Can an employee be trained into something that is not printed on its card?
- What can Local and Regional Managers do with restaurants?
- Is the Mass Marketeer still trained from itself in the newer printing?
- Can a zeppelin pilot move diagonally?
- Do houses placed by the New Business Developer come with gardens, and what can it place?
- What if I commit more cards than fit in my company structure?
- Can a manager report to another manager, making a fourth level?
- Can I hold two copies of a 1X employee, such as a second Luxuries Manager?
Turn Order and Actions
- What can players do on the very first turn, and who picks turn order first?
- Which employee actions are optional and which are mandatory?
- Must a cart operator, truck driver or zeppelin pilot use its full range, and can it U-turn or revisit a drink symbol?
- Can a buyer collect from a drink source it only passes on an adjacent road?
- Can a cart operator pass under a bridge to reach a drink stand?
- Are a player's employee actions taken all at the same time or one at a time?
- Does the order of actions in the Working phase matter?
- Can a buyer take drinks from either side of the road?
- Can I hire a worker whose card is out of stock by recruiting a phantom card and training it, and can I recruit someone I just trained?
Marketing Campaigns
- Can a campaign advertise different products over its duration or be switched later?
- Does demand go away when a campaign ends, and how many tokens can a house hold?
- Does a radio reach tiles around a corner tile of the map?
- Can a house or its garden span two tiles, and how many demand tokens can it hold?
- Can airplane campaigns overlap, share rows or columns, or be placed sideways?
- Where can a radio campaign be placed and which houses does it reach?
- Must billboards be next to a road, and which houses does a billboard reach?
- Which houses does a mailbox campaign reach, and do bridges block it?
- Can a permanent (eternal) marketing campaign be removed?
Dinnertime, Prices and Income
- When a house orders several goods, is distance added to the price once or per item?
- Can a product's price go below zero?
- Does the Luxuries Manager raise the price of every item?
- With several restaurants, where do food and drinks go and can any restaurant use them?
- Does the Luxuries Manager's +$10 apply to every sale, and when?
- Does a Pricing Manager's discount apply per item or per order, and what is a 'unit'?
- Does the CFO's 50% bonus apply to milestone money, and do I pay the CEO if the CEO acts as CFO?
- How does a house choose between restaurants, and does it use the total price of its order?
- What does a garden double: price modifiers, milestone bonuses, Waitress income?
Milestones
- Why are there different numbers of copies of each milestone, and is that enough?
- When does a milestone take effect, and can employees granted by a milestone count toward 'first to hire three'?
- What if more players qualify for a milestone than there are copies?
- Can several players claim the same milestone, and when are unclaimed ones removed?
- Does the First to Lower Prices milestone count with a Luxuries Manager in the same turn, and do you need to sell anything?
- Does taking the First Billboard milestone make all campaigns eternal?
- Does the First Billboard milestone make a Mass Marketeer campaign eternal?
- Do I need to sell a burger, or create demand, to earn a First ___ Placed milestone?
- When does First New Restaurant count: when placed or when opened?
Payday and Salaries
- Do I pay salaries for marketeers once I have the First Billboard milestone?
- How do HR Director and Recruiting Manager salary discounts work, and can I refuse them?
- Where do salaries go when paid at Payday?
- Does firing happen before salaries at Payday, and in what order do players fire?
- Can I fire a marketeer who is busy running a campaign?
- Do I pay salaries for employees on the beach and for ones hired or trained this turn?
- Can I fire employees during Payday even if I can afford them?
- Do I pay a salary for Waitresses?
- What if I can't pay an employee's salary at Payday?
Breaking the Bank and Ending the Game
- What happens to a bankrupt player's employees?
- What happens to a bankrupt chain's restaurants and campaigns, and who wins if everyone goes bankrupt?
- Can a chain actually go bankrupt?
- Are salaries paid in the final turn, and what does 'pay all dues' mean?
- When exactly does the game end after the bank breaks the second time?
- When the bank first breaks, do I still collect the rest of my income?
- When do the new base prices and CEO slots take effect after the bank first breaks?
- If the reserve can't cover what is owed, where does the rest come from?
- How is a tie between reserve card types resolved when the bank breaks?
Food Chain Magnate: The Ketchup Mechanism & Other IdeasExpansion
- Where can a new road, roadworks or other terrain piece be placed?
- Can an airplane or the food critic block a highway spot?
- In the coffee module, how does a house choose its route, and which coffee shops sell?
- If a coffee shop sits on every route, or I rotate a restaurant entrance, who sells coffee?
- How does coffee selling work when coffee stock is limited?
- If two restaurants are equally far from a house, can coffee on the way decide which it picks?
- Can a house's route make a U-turn to reach a coffee shop or restaurant?
- Where can a coffee shop be placed by training a Barista, and in what order?
- Can a coffee shop be moved, and does the old location count for range?