Still miss Restaurant City? We built something inspired by it
If you're looking for a way to play Restaurant City online in 2026, the original is gone for good. We missed it too, so we built Food Friends — a free, independent game inspired by it: your own restaurant, your own menu, and friends' places to visit right in the browser.
What Restaurant City was
Restaurant City launched on Facebook on April 28, 2009 from Playfish, and stayed near the top of Facebook's most-played games for years. The idea was simple: build a restaurant, hire your Facebook friends as staff, and cook a menu that grew as you combined ingredients into new dishes. What kept players coming back was a mix of constant progress, creative freedom in decorating your place, and a social pull — you wanted your restaurant to look better than the one your friends were running down the street.
Why it disappeared
Playfish was acquired by EA in 2009, and by the early 2010s EA had begun shutting down its Facebook games one by one. Restaurant City held on longer than most, but as Facebook pulled away from games and players migrated to smartphones, it closed for good on June 29, 2012 — taking years of players' progress with it, with no way to bring it back. Playfish's own farewell announcement is still up. We wrote about that history in more detail, including the hunt for a surviving copy of the original game and a closer look at why it shut down.
What Food Friends carries forward
Food Friends isn't a copy of Restaurant City's code or art — it's a new game built to capture the same feeling. You'll recognize the shape of it:
- Cook dishes and unlock new recipes as your menu grows.
- Decorate your restaurant inside and out, and shape the street outside it.
- Hire chefs and waiters to keep customers served.
- Visit friends' restaurants around the city and climb the rankings.
- Play free, right in your browser — no install, no waiting.
Play now
Food Friends plays free in your browser — jump straight into your own restaurant, no download required. It's also available as a free download on Android, with progress that carries across both.
Food Friends is an independent game, not affiliated with EA or Playfish.