If you enjoy the idea of running a busy restaurant in Big Ambitions, fast food is one of the businesses you should definitely consider. It can be a lot of work when you first open it, but once you get the right setup, enough customers, and a good supply chain, it can turn into a very profitable business.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through what you need to open a fast food restaurant, which products you should sell, how to choose a good location, and how to keep the business stocked without spending your entire day doing deliveries.
I’ll also explain the difference between revenue and actual profit, because this is something that can be easy to overlook in Big Ambitions. A restaurant making thousands of dollars in sales sounds great, but what really matters is how much money you have left after paying for stock, workers, marketing, and other expenses.
Big Ambitions Fast Food Guide – How to Make Money
Getting your first fast food restaurant running is fairly straightforward. You don’t need a huge amount of equipment to get started, but there are a few things you absolutely need.
For the basic setup, you’ll need:
- Cash Register – You can buy this from the Appliance Store.
- Cleaning Station – Also available from the Appliance Store.
- Industrial Fryer – You’ll need this for your fast food operation.
- At least one food product – You can purchase products from wholesalers such as NY Distro Inc.
The main products you can sell include:
- Burger
- French Fries
- Hotdog
- Pizza
- Salad
- Soda Can
- Ice Cream
- Apple
- Banana
Apples and bananas can technically be sold, but I wouldn’t make them the focus of your restaurant. The more important part is offering several of the stronger fast food products instead of relying on just one item.
You can start with a simple setup and expand it as your customer traffic increases. Once more people start visiting, adding additional equipment lets you serve more customers at the same time.
I also recommend getting a drinks fridge once you can afford it. It isn’t absolutely mandatory for opening your restaurant, but drinks make a lot of sense for a fast food business and can help you increase the number of products you offer.
Don’t Rely on Burgers Alone
One of the biggest things I would change from some of the older fast food advice is the idea that you should simply open a small restaurant and sell burgers.
Earlier versions of Big Ambitions made fast food less attractive from a profitability standpoint, which is why you’ll still find older guides telling players to avoid this business. The situation is different in the newer versions, especially in the full release.
The important thing is that you shouldn’t build your entire restaurant around a single product.
Instead, try selling multiple items. Burgers, fries, hotdogs, drinks, and other suitable products can work together to give customers more options and help your restaurant generate more sales.
This also gives you more room to experiment. If you notice that certain products are selling much faster than others, you can adjust your stock and equipment around what your customers actually want.
Revenue vs Profit: What Is the Difference?
This is probably one of the most important things to understand before judging whether your fast food restaurant is successful.
Revenue is not the same as profit.
Revenue is basically the total amount of money your restaurant brings in through sales. Your actual profit is what remains after you subtract your expenses.
For example, imagine your restaurant makes $8,000 in revenue in one day. That sounds fantastic at first, but if you’re spending around $4,000 on stock, you’re not actually making $8,000.
After the stock cost alone, you’d have around $4,000 left before considering your other expenses.
So when you’re checking your business reports, don’t just look at the revenue number and assume everything is going perfectly. Look at how much you’re spending to generate those sales.
This becomes even more important as you expand because employee wages, rent, marketing, utilities, and logistics can all affect your final profit.
Choose a Good Fast Food Location
Location is extremely important for a fast food restaurant.
I recommend checking the Traffic Index before committing to a location. You want enough people passing through the area to give your restaurant a steady stream of potential customers.
A traffic index of around 30 or higher is a useful target to consider, although it isn’t a magic number that guarantees success. Your results can still depend on other factors, including competition and marketing.
I’d also pay attention to how many other fast food businesses are already operating nearby. If you put your restaurant somewhere with strong traffic but several competing fast food businesses are already there, you may not get the results you were expecting.
On the other hand, moving into a larger location with good traffic can make a noticeable difference once your restaurant starts getting busy.
So don’t just look for the cheapest building you can find. Think about traffic, competition, available space, and how much you expect the restaurant to grow.
Build Your Supply Chain Before You Get Too Busy
This is one part of running a fast food restaurant that can catch you off guard.
Fast food businesses go through stock very quickly. When you’re just starting, you can handle deliveries yourself without too much trouble. But once the restaurant becomes busy, manually buying and delivering stock can become a full-time job.
The problem becomes even more obvious because manual deliveries are limited to 20 boxes at a time. That might be enough for a small operation, but eventually your restaurant can consume stock much faster than you can comfortably replace it yourself.
I recommend starting by handling things yourself. This gives you a chance to understand how the restaurant works, see how much stock you’re using, and make sure there is actually enough customer demand before you start spending heavily on logistics.
Once the restaurant is consistently making good money, it’s time to automate more of the process.
A Purchasing Agent can handle ordering the stock, while a Logistics Manager can take care of deliveries. This lets you stop spending so much of your time driving around the city just to keep your restaurant stocked.
For me, this is one of the biggest steps when turning a fast food restaurant from a small business into a proper money-making operation.
Do You Need Marketing for Fast Food?
Marketing can definitely help your fast food restaurant, but I wouldn’t simply turn every marketing option up to 100% and forget about it.
The amount you spend on marketing needs to make sense compared with the extra customers and revenue you’re actually getting.
Some players have reported significant improvements after adding another marketing firm, with one player even reporting that their income nearly doubled after doing so. Billboard advertising has also received positive feedback from players.
At the same time, spending as much as possible on marketing isn’t automatically better. There are reports of players increasing marketing to 100% across the board and actually hurting their overall profit.
That’s why I recommend treating marketing as something you adjust and test.
If spending another $1,000 on marketing brings in enough extra customers to generate $2,000 in additional profit, then it’s obviously worthwhile. If you’re spending more on advertising than the extra sales are worth, you should scale it back.
And when you’re just starting the restaurant, don’t feel like you need to spend heavily on marketing immediately. First make sure you have a good location, enough stock, and a working restaurant.
Should You Open a Fast Food Restaurant?
So, is fast food actually worth it in Big Ambitions?
I’d say yes, but it isn’t completely effortless.
Fast food rewards you for actively managing the business. You need a good location, enough products, reliable stock, and eventually a proper logistics setup. If you ignore those things, the restaurant can quickly become more trouble than it’s worth.
However, once you have enough customers and automate your supply chain, fast food can become a very strong source of income.
If you prefer a business that requires very little management, you might want to consider some of the other options in Big Ambitions. But if you don’t mind putting in some work and gradually building the restaurant into a larger operation, I think fast food is absolutely worth trying.
My biggest advice is to start small, watch your numbers, and scale when the demand is there. Don’t judge the restaurant purely by its revenue, don’t overspend on marketing, and don’t let your stock management turn into a full-time driving simulator.
Get the location right, sell multiple products, keep your shelves stocked, and build up your logistics when the business can afford it. Do that, and your fast food restaurant can eventually become one of the biggest earners in your Big Ambitions empire.