Restaurant City: remembering the Facebook restaurant game
Restaurant City was a restaurant-management game by Playfish that ran on Facebook from 2009 until it closed on 29 June 2012. You built a small restaurant, hired your Facebook friends as cooks and waiters, learned recipes one ingredient at a time and decorated every tile of your dining room. For a few years it was one of the games people opened every day, often several times a day, just to check on their staff.
This is a look back at what made it so easy to love: not the dates, but the small things we all did in it.
A quick history of Restaurant City
Restaurant City ran on Facebook for about three years, from its 2009 launch by Playfish to its closure on 29 June 2012.
- 2009: Playfish launched Restaurant City on Facebook.
- 9 November 2009: Electronic Arts acquired Playfish.
- 29 June 2012: Restaurant City closed its doors.
In Vietnam, many players knew the game on Zing Me under the name Nhà Hàng Vui Vẻ.
| Restaurant City at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Developer | Playfish |
| Publisher after Nov 2009 | Electronic Arts (acquired Playfish) |
| Platform | Facebook (Flash) |
| Launched | 2009 |
| Closed | 29 June 2012 |
| Name in Vietnam (Zing Me) | Nhà Hàng Vui Vẻ |
| Genre | Restaurant management / social game |
The things we remember
Players remember the daily rituals most: hiring friends, building the menu, trading for rare ingredients, the quiz, the Food King, helping friends, the garden, Gourmet Street, the arcade and the holiday dishes.
Hiring your friends
Your staff were not anonymous characters. They were your friends, wearing whatever outfit you picked for them. One became your cook, another your waiter, and the unlucky one swept the floor. Staff got tired as they worked, and a tired cook was a slow cook. If your cook or waiter ran out of energy completely, the restaurant simply closed, so a big part of the routine was sending people to rest and coming back later.
Building the menu
The menu was split into starters, mains, desserts and drinks, and you could only serve a few dishes from each course at a time. Every dish could be levelled up to level 10, and every level cost another full set of its ingredients. Getting a favourite dish to level 10 felt like a real achievement, and there was a trophy for it.
Begging for one rare ingredient
Ingredients came in rarities from one to five stars. Common ones were easy. The rare ones were not, and that one missing piece for a level-up was the reason half your Facebook messages existed. Trading ingredients with friends was the most social part of the game: you offered what you had spare, they offered what you needed, and both of you got a little closer to the next level.
The daily food quiz
Once a day a quiz arrived in your mailbox. You had ten seconds to answer a food question from three choices. Get it right and you won an ingredient, sometimes a rare one. It was a tiny moment, but it was one more reason to log in every day.
The Food King's visits
Every so often a royal visitor turned up, wandering through your restaurant or along the street. Click him and you got to pick a prize. Spotting him before he left was part of the fun.
Helping friends' restaurants
Visiting a friend was not just looking around. Sometimes their restaurant had a problem waiting for you: a small fire, a water leak, mushrooms sprouting, skunks, a bear, even a line of penguins. Fixing it earned you coins and gourmet points, and the first friends you helped each day paid the most.
The garden
Later in the game you got garden plots for herbs and spices. You planted a seed, watered it, waited, and harvested an ingredient you could not always find elsewhere. Watering a friend's garden was a small favour that everybody returned.
Gourmet Street and the star ratings
Restaurants could be rated, and Gourmet Street showed the best-rated places. Walking down the street and peeking into strangers' restaurants was a great way to steal decorating ideas.
The arcade machine
One of the decorations was a working arcade machine. Click it and you could play a little snake-style game right inside your restaurant, with your high score saved for friends to see.
Holiday dishes
Seasonal events brought limited-time recipes: Halloween treats, Christmas dishes such as the Gingerbread House and Festive Turkey, and Valentine sweets like the Valentine Cake in early 2010. If you missed the window, you missed the dish, which is exactly why people still remember them.
Why Restaurant City still matters to players
Restaurant City combined three things that worked well together: a restaurant that kept running while you were away, a menu you improved slowly over weeks, and friends who were part of every system, from staff to trades to visits. It rewarded checking in for five minutes as much as playing for an hour.
Playing again today
The original Restaurant City is no longer online. If you would like to play something in the same spirit, Bistro City is an independent restaurant game inspired by the classic Restaurant City experience. Bistro City is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Playfish or Electronic Arts. You can read more in what Bistro City is, see how it compares with Restaurant City, or read whether you can still play Restaurant City.
FAQ
When did Restaurant City come out?
Playfish launched Restaurant City on Facebook in 2009.
When did Restaurant City shut down?
The game closed on 29 June 2012.
Who made Restaurant City?
Restaurant City was made by Playfish, a social games studio that Electronic Arts acquired in November 2009.