Which Cooking Fever Restaurant to Unlock First: Best Order
Cooking Fever restaurants open in a fixed sequence set by your experience level, so the real question is not which one comes next but whether it deserves your coins and gems when the gate lifts. This guide lists the first ten Cooking Fever restaurants with their level, coin and gem costs, explains why Sports Bar and Café Mexicana dominate every forum thread, and names the ones whose upgrades stay cheap. It is part of our Cooking Fever guides.
How Cooking Fever restaurants unlock: three gates, not one
Every one of the Cooking Fever restaurants sits behind three requirements: an experience level, a coin price and a gem price. The level is the hard gate. You cannot buy a restaurant before your account reaches its number, however large your balance. The full ladder is in our XP levels guide.
Coins are the soft gate. Every level you play pays coins, and every open restaurant pays a daily income you collect once every 24 hours. Gems are the slow gate. Levelling up pays them, and the noodlearcade strategy guide puts the reward at 2 gems per level early on, rising to 7 later. Our gem sources guide covers everything else that pays them.
Because the level gate is fixed, the game has already sorted Cooking Fever restaurants into an order. What it leaves to you is a different decision: buy the restaurant the moment it appears, or hold the gems and keep upgrading the one you own. That is the decision this guide is about.
The first ten Cooking Fever restaurants: level, coins and gems
These are the first ten Cooking Fever restaurants by unlock level, as the community wiki lists them. Vilnius Manor and Gourmet Restaurant were added to the City after most older guides were written, which is why those guides jump from Bakery to Chinese Restaurant.
| Level | Restaurant | Coins | Gems |
| 1 | Fast Food Court | Free | Free |
| 3 | Vilnius Manor | 5,000 | 10 |
| 4 | Bakery | 5,000 | 10 |
| 6 | Sports Bar | 5,000 | 10 |
| 8 | Gourmet Restaurant | 10,000 | 15 |
| 10 | Chinese Restaurant | 10,000 | 20 |
| 12 | Pizzeria | 15,000 | 30 |
| 14 | Rock & Roll Bar | 10,000 | 15 |
| 15 | The Flipping Pancake | 5,000 | 10 |
| 16 | Seafood Bistro | 15,000 | 30 |
Prices move. Nordcurrent runs sales that cut both the coin and gem price of Cooking Fever restaurants, and some list prices have changed over the years. Levelwinner still quotes Seafood Bistro at 25,000 coins and 50 gems, where the wiki now lists 15,000 and 30. Treat the table as the current list price and expect a discount if you wait. All 48, including Paradise Island and Alpine Resort, are in our full restaurant unlock table.
What payback means for Cooking Fever restaurants
A restaurant pays you back in two ways. The first is daily income, the coin pile that builds once a day whether you play or not. The noodlearcade upgrade cost table lists the maximum daily income as 372 coins for Fast Food Court, 732 for Bakery, 648 for Sports Bar, 702 for Chinese Restaurant, 879 for Pizzeria and 918 for Seafood Bistro. Set those against the prices and Bakery earns back its 5,000 coins in about a week of daily income alone. Chinese Restaurant takes roughly two weeks. Those are ceiling figures reached after upgrades, so early payback is slower, but the coin price of any early restaurant is recovered quickly. The second kind of payback is experience and coins from playing, which is where the cheap Cooking Fever restaurants earn their reputation.
What never pays back is the gem price. No restaurant returns gems. It returns coins and experience, and experience turns into gems only through level ups. So the gem column is the one to weigh. Four of the first ten Cooking Fever restaurants cost 10 gems: Vilnius Manor, Bakery, Sports Bar and The Flipping Pancake. Pizzeria and Seafood Bistro cost 30 each, three times the price for a daily income that is not three times larger.
A sensible order for the first ten
- Buy on sight: Bakery at level 4 and Sports Bar at level 6. Both cost 10 gems, and Sports Bar becomes your grinding restaurant.
- Buy when convenient: Chinese Restaurant at level 10. It costs 20 gems, but the chaptercheats thread on which restaurant to buy next points out that it has automatic cookers, which makes three stars easier.
- Cheap extras: Vilnius Manor at 3, Gourmet Restaurant at 8 and The Flipping Pancake at 15 cost 10 to 15 gems each. None is essential, but at that price none is a regret.
- Wait for a sale: Pizzeria at 12 and Seafood Bistro at 16 are the first 30 gem prices. Levelwinner’s advice is to hold expensive unlocks until they are discounted, and nothing in the early game forces your hand.
Why Sports Bar and Café Mexicana come up in every discussion
The community wiki keeps a page on where to play for the most experience and coins, and its conclusion is blunt: the fastest progression is to unlock Sports Bar first, then Café Mexicana. Its figures for level 40 with the relevant upgrades are 425 experience and 2,314 coins per play in Sports Bar, against 1,104 experience and 2,629 coins in Café Mexicana. The same page notes that videos of later Cooking Fever restaurants show no clear improvement on Café Mexicana.
Sports Bar earns its place on price. It costs 5,000 coins and 10 gems, and a player in the chaptercheats thread reports that none of its upgrades costs more than 15 gems. The wiki’s item pages agree: the top tier of the Scoreboard, its priciest interior item, is 13 gems. You will also see far higher XP figures quoted for it, such as 1,125 per play. Noodlearcade explains why: the restaurant was renamed from FC Barcelona Sports Bar in 2017, and the XP and coins it pays depend on when you downloaded it. Plan around the lower wiki figure.
Café Mexicana earns its place on output, but there is a catch most forum answers skip. It is a Paradise Island restaurant unlocked at level 32, for 20,000 coins and 25 gems. Sports Bar opens at level 6. There are 26 levels between them.
“Sports Bar then Café Mexicana” is not two consecutive purchases. It is an early plan and a mid game plan. Every restaurant you buy between level 6 and level 32 is bought for the experience it takes to reach Café Mexicana, not for its own sake. Grind Sports Bar until the level 32 gate lifts, then move your grinding to Café Mexicana and treat the rest of the map as optional.
Which Cooking Fever restaurants have cheap upgrades
The unlock price is the small number. The bill that follows is the cost of upgrading every kitchen and interior item, and the community wiki publishes a full upgrade total for each of the Cooking Fever restaurants.
| Restaurant | Unlock | Full upgrade |
| Fast Food Court | Free | 54,700 coins, 128 gems |
| Bakery | 5,000 coins, 10 gems | 122,000 coins, 307 gems |
| Sports Bar | 5,000 coins, 10 gems | 169,150 coins, 343 gems |
| Rock & Roll Bar | 10,000 coins, 15 gems | 190,000 coins, 514 gems |
| Chinese Restaurant | 10,000 coins, 20 gems | 196,200 coins, 625 gems |
| Café Mexicana | 20,000 coins, 25 gems | 241,600 coins, 565 gems |
| Seafood Bistro | 15,000 coins, 30 gems | 263,200 coins, 1,013 gems |
Seafood Bistro is the clearest warning. It costs 30 gems to open and 1,013 to finish, so the unlock is about 3 percent of the total. Fast Food Court, Bakery and Sports Bar are the three cheap Cooking Fever restaurants to finish, and Café Mexicana is unusually cheap for its output, with fewer gems in its full upgrade than Chinese Restaurant.
You rarely need the full bill. Noodlearcade’s Sports Bar walkthrough reached three stars on every level with 73 percent of kitchen items and 83 percent of interior items upgraded. Upgrade the items that add customers or speed cooking, skip the decorative top tiers, and the gem bill drops well below the wiki’s total.
Buy now or keep upgrading: the rule that holds up
Three sources point the same way. Noodlearcade tells you not to rush new locations and to raise your level by replaying instead. Levelwinner tells you to keep gems for unlocks rather than equipment and to wait for sales. The chaptercheats thread settles on buying whichever of the Cooking Fever restaurants is cheapest next. Put together, the rule is simple. Take any 10 gem restaurant when it appears, because the coins come back within weeks and the gem price is smaller than a single upgrade tier elsewhere. Hold every 25 to 35 gem restaurant until a sale, or until you are stuck for experience and need new levels to climb.
This logic matters most before level 32. After Café Mexicana, the remaining Cooking Fever restaurants cost 25 to 35 gems each, and opening all 48 needs 1,043,000 coins and 1,125 gems. At that stage you are no longer choosing an order; you are choosing which restaurants to skip.
Frequently asked questions
Which restaurant should you unlock first in Cooking Fever?
Bakery at level 4, then Sports Bar at level 6. Both cost 5,000 coins and 10 gems, the lowest gem price in the game, and Sports Bar is the restaurant the community wiki recommends grinding in for experience and coins. Vilnius Manor at level 3 costs the same, so take it too if you like the food, but it is not the priority.
Is the Sports Bar worth buying in Cooking Fever?
Yes. It is the cheapest strong restaurant in the game: 5,000 coins and 10 gems to open, 169,150 coins and 343 gems to fully upgrade, and no single upgrade above 15 gems. The wiki lists level 40 at 425 experience and 2,314 coins per play with upgrades. Higher figures you see online come from the older FC Barcelona version.
When can you unlock Café Mexicana in Cooking Fever?
At experience level 32, for 20,000 coins and 25 gems. It is on Paradise Island, not in the City. The wiki rates it the best place to play for both experience and coins, at 1,104 experience and 2,629 coins on level 40 with upgrades, and notes that later restaurants show no clear improvement on it.
Should you finish a restaurant before buying the next one?
Not necessarily, but do not spread gems thin. Noodlearcade advises raising your level by replaying before buying new locations, and levelwinner advises keeping gems for unlocks rather than equipment. A workable middle path is to keep one grinding restaurant well upgraded, buy cheap restaurants when they appear, and leave expensive ones until a sale.
Do restaurants in Cooking Fever go on sale?
Yes. Nordcurrent runs sales that reduce both the coin and gem price of a restaurant for a limited time, and levelwinner recommends waiting for one before buying an expensive location. Sale timing is not published, so the practical rule is to buy 10 gem restaurants at full price and hold 25 to 35 gem restaurants for a discount.
Can you open every restaurant at once?
Not in the base game. The level gate blocks purchases until your account reaches each restaurant’s number, and the top gate is level 69. Only a modified build removes those limits, which is a separate subject with its own trade offs; our Cooking Fever Mod APK page explains what that changes and what it does not.
The short answer
Let the level gate set the order and spend your judgement on the gem price. Buy Bakery and Sports Bar the moment they appear, grind Sports Bar for experience, and take Chinese Restaurant when 20 gems feels comfortable. Hold Pizzeria and Seafood Bistro for a sale. At level 32, open Café Mexicana and move your grinding there. Everything after that is a choice about which Cooking Fever restaurants to skip, not which to unlock first.
Sources. Unlock levels, prices and full upgrade totals on this page come from the community maintained Cooking Fever Wiki, including its page on where to play for the most experience and coins. Daily income figures and the Sports Bar walkthrough come from noodlearcade.com, sale advice from levelwinner.com, and the buying order discussion from the chaptercheats Cooking Fever answers thread. Cooking Fever and its trademarks belong to Nordcurrent Games; this site is independent and not endorsed by them.