Tips & Strategy

How to teach Food Chain Magnate, three common openings, milestones to race for, drinks, marketing, prices, and choosing your bank reserve card.

How to teach it

Read Teach the Game aloud, then set up with first game ticked on Setup: no reserve cards, no milestones, $75 per player, no salaries, and the game ends at the first bank break.
Play the first rounds openly. The opening rounds take seconds each, but they decide a lot: show how a hire in round 1 becomes a trained employee by round 3.
Point out the two things new players miss most: houses buy their whole order or nothing, and you pay salaries for employees on the beach too.
After a few rounds, restart with the full rules — the designer recommends seeing the mechanisms in action first.

Three openings come up again and again. Each fits a different game length.

Recruiting Girl opening. Round 1 hire a Recruiting Girl; round 2 play her and hire another Recruiting Girl plus a Trainer or marketeer; round 3 hire 3 people for First to Hire 3 Employees in 1 Turn and its 2 free Management Trainees. Flexible, and suits a medium game. (Unfussy Board Games; My Board Game Guides; RTFM)
Trainer rush. Round 1 hire a Trainer; then train early for First to Train an Employee ($15 off salaries every round) and push one employee up to a Guru. No income for several rounds, then a very strong company. Wants a long game. (Unfussy Board Games; My Board Game Guides; RTFM)
Early cash. Round 1 Errand Boy, round 2 Marketing Trainee: a billboard reaching two houses and a drink to sell. An unsold drink thrown away can claim the freezer milestone. Wants a short game, before the bigger companies get going. (RTFM)

Whatever you choose, a mistake in rounds 1–3 is hard to recover from. (Quack&Co)

Milestones are permanent and go to whoever gets there first: decide early which ones you race for, and watch which ones the others are heading for. (Shut Up & Sit Down)
First to Hire 3, First to Train and First to Pay $20 in Salaries shape the openings above. (RTFM; Unfussy Board Games)
First Billboard Campaign makes every later campaign eternal — useful, but it ties up your marketeers for good, and everyone knows where that demand will be.

Put your starting restaurant where a Cart Operator or Truck Driver can pass two or more drink suppliers. (RTFM; My Board Game Guides)
An Errand Boy brings just one drink: fine early, too little once demand grows. (My Board Game Guides)
A cluster of houses that only your restaurant can reach is an “island”: no competition, full price. (My Board Game Guides)

Demand belongs to nobody: any connected restaurant can serve a house you marketed. Market what you can supply, close to your own restaurants. (Shut Up & Sit Down)
You can hurt others by marketing something they can’t make — a house that also wants a beer won’t buy their burger. It may help them later, so check who can serve it. (Shut Up & Sit Down; My Board Game Guides)
Place billboards where they touch two houses. (RTFM)
Plan for the order houses eat in: if lower-numbered houses take all your stock, higher ones go elsewhere.

Price wars hurt the attacker too: use Pricing and Discount Managers to win specific houses, not every round. (Shut Up & Sit Down; My Board Game Guides)
Sometimes a few sales at a high price (Luxuries Manager, gardens) beat many at a discount.
Don’t produce more than you can sell: unsold items are thrown away. (RTFM)

Every trained employee costs $5 a round. A company that earns nothing must fire staff, and falls further behind. Grow only as fast as your income allows. (Unfussy Board Games)
Choose your reserve card to match your plan: $100 to shorten the game for a fast strategy, $300 to lengthen it for a big company, $200 in between. Against a player rushing for a Guru, a low card can end the game before they cash in. (RTFM; Unfussy Board Games)
The game speeds up sharply at the end. You can win by earning almost everything in the last round — or still be preparing when it ends.
Leaving work slots empty buys an earlier turn-order choice: useful the round you need a 1x employee or a milestone first. (My Board Game Guides)

The rulebook wins. In a 3-player game there is only one copy of each 1x employee, such as the Guru, and with 4 players two.

YouTube:

Rulebook: “Some strategic pointers”, Special Edition rulebook. BGG: rulings are linked by thread in the FAQ.