Teach the Game
A five-minute teach: how you win, the map, a round, how the game ends, where cash comes from, and what employees, food and drinks are for.
How you win
You run a fast food chain. The most cash at the end wins — nothing else scores. Everyone starts with $0 and only a CEO card: you build your company from nothing.
The boards
- The city map (The Map and Distance): map tiles with roads, houses and drink suppliers. Your restaurants go here, and so do your marketing campaigns.
- Your company (company structure): employee cards laid out in a pyramid under your CEO. Who you play decides what you can do this round.
- Your milestone tray (Milestones): bonuses for being first at something.
- The bank: $50 per player. When it runs dry the first time, it is refilled from the secret reserve cards; the second time, the game ends.
A round
- Restructuring: everyone secretly chooses which employees work; the rest go “on the beach”.
- Order of Business: the most open work slots chooses turn order first.
- Working 9–5: each player in turn hires, trains, launches marketing, makes food, collects drinks, builds houses and opens restaurants.
- Dinnertime: each house with demand eats at a connected restaurant that has its whole order. Cheapest price plus distance wins.
- Payday: pay $5 for each employee with a salary.
- Marketing: campaigns add demand to houses.
- Cleanup: unsold food is thrown away; take your employees back.
How the game ends
The game ends at the end of the Dinnertime in which the bank breaks for the second time (Game End and Scoring). Everyone’s secret reserve card decides how much cash comes in after the first break — so nobody knows quite how long the game will be.
Ways to score
- Selling food and drinks at Dinnertime: $10 each to start, changed by pricing employees.
- Gardens: a house with a garden pays double.
- Milestones: +$5 per burger, pizza or drink once you were first to market it.
- Waitresses ($3 each) and a CFO (+50%) at the end of Dinnertime.
Cash goes out as salaries: $5 per trained employee, every round, even those on the beach.
What each resource is for
| Thing | Why you want it | How you get it | What you do with it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | They are your only actions | Hire entry-level ones, train them up | Play them under your CEO each round |
| Managers (black) | More work slots, so more employees | Train a Management Trainee | Put them in CEO slots |
  Food | Houses want it | Kitchen staff make it | Sell at Dinnertime |
   Drinks | Houses want them | Errand Boys, carts and trucks collect them | Sell at Dinnertime |
| Demand | No demand, no customers | Marketing campaigns | Houses eat when someone has their whole order |
| Milestones | Permanent bonuses | Be first to do something | Plan your company around them |
Teaching tips
- Play a first game with the introductory rules: no reserve cards, no milestones, no salaries, $75 per player, and the game ends at the first bank break.
- Say it twice: a house buys its whole order from one chain, or nothing.
- The first two rounds have no sales — that’s normal. Demand appears after Dinnertime of round 2 at the earliest.