Costs & Planning

In this article, we want to share with you insights into Costs & Planning for your new Bar or Restaurant.

Spend time talking to projected clientele, get an idea of what makes them feel memorable in terms of their dining experience, and spend time visiting other local restaurants to take note of what works for them and what might not.

Set a comfortable budget so that you know your resources are available for you and include a sufficient and appropriate level of contingency to accommodate for any unforeseen expenses.

In setting budgets it’s important to understand what drives those budgets.

The size or area of a restaurant will be built at an average cost of between £1,500 & £4,000 per metre squared.

Some mega projects will be more than that, but depending on your level and your specification, your budget should fall within this.

Costs are affected by the level of the general cost to area and this can be diluted by the effect of fixed costs.

This might be something such as your kitchen, your bar, your toilets, and other necessarily directly proportional areas.

Normally you should expect a proportion of approximately 60% front of house to 40% back house when you’re considering your areas.

The scale of repeat fits-out work will also affect your financial cost per metre squared. This is because when you’re creating a new restaurant, you will spend more on your initial development than you will for your 5th or 6th restaurant.

A branded coffee shop might cost £1000 a metre square to build, but you’re unlikely to provide that same level of fit-out on your initial concept for the same price.

Your front house is your customer experience and it needs to be right to set the right conceptual ambiance for you. You need to also consider the number of covers that you can comfortably fit in there, but by maximising sales at the same time, your furniture costs typically between 20 and 35% of your budget.

This will relate to fixed furniture as well as actual commercial chairs, although when you consider a commercial chair you can spend as little as £80 a seat, up to almost £800 a chair or more depending on your fit-out.

Service installations are also non-contact costs that your customer will not see but will add to their ambiance and their experience and comfort.

You need to reconsider your extraction, your fresh air supply, new versus existing installations, and how you might adapt or maintain your installation. Remember, if you don’t use a new installation then you won’t get a warranty for it. Your kitchen is a significant proportion of your restaurant fit-out costs. It’s the engine room of your restaurant and without a successful set-up kitchen, you are nothing.

Think about your electrical and gas connections within your kitchen, think about your plumbing, your commercial catering, and depending on the space in your kitchen, this can account for almost as much as 50% to 70% of your entire budget. An average 60-meter square kitchen can cost between £180,000 to £360,000 depending on the type of cooking that you’re using and what its purpose is.

Working within an existing kitchen space can dramatically reduce your construction costs. However, expect to refurbish, upgrade and maintain the existing kitchen equipment day-to-day. Other cost savings could be to lease equipment. We talked about funding earlier. This puts a cost on the revenue expenditure rather than capital expenditure, ie. You’re taking it out of your profit line rather than your initial capital expenditure at the start of a project. You might also consider second-hand equipment. However, in this instance, again, you don’t have any warranties and you need to comply with the latest regulations.

Another fixed cost you might consider is your toilet areas. Your requirements for several cubicles are based on building regulations, although this can vary from council to council too. Your cost per cubicle will be increased with the higher levels of this specification and you need to consider whether you’re going to use dedicated male and female or unisex cubicles. Unisex toilet cubicles tend to have fewer requirements for total circulation space and can cut down that backhouse space that you need.

In discussing the types of cost centers that can add to the cost of your unit, you need to consider the size for example the floor space, the entirety of any new fits out versus renovating any previous uses and reuse of the existing floor, walls, and ceiling finishes or services, or even fittings and fixed furniture any structural works that are required. Your type of offer.

Your finishes for a fine dining restaurant will be more than your fast casual. Your type of finish is dictated by that type of use and how durable your restaurant fit-out needs to be in consideration of your location. A station or a shopping center will cost more than a high street location. Also, you need to consider the quality and level of specification of your kit and infrastructure.

When we consider this, we might think of a basic finish. This would include the flooring, the furniture, the counters, the front of house and the back of house fits out.

What you do for your staff in terms of your toilets, your restrooms, and any reception area that you have. This is ideally a basic finish for a start-up business or a small franchise or a smaller restaurant.

Despite the lower cost for the restaurant fit-out, it’s still possible to build a good degree of individuality. It creates a function, creates the right aesthetic, and pleasing space for your customers and your client base that you’ve established for what you’re looking for.

We might also consider an enhanced finish for our restaurant. By spending a little bit more money on that restaurant fit-out, it’s possible to increase the choices available, whether this means a larger amount of bespoke joinery, more expensive materials, or the addition of the unique features we’re all adding to the ambiance and the heritage for your restaurant. These defining features might impact your cuisine and also spending more help yield you some stunning results.

Hiring fine dining missions usually preserves larger prestigious restaurants which are targeting an audience for whom ambiance uniqueness pedigree and exquisite quality are the hallmarks of a desirable dining experience, the more luxurious restaurant fits out, resulting in more luxurious costs as well. We need to target our client customer base. So in this section, we talked about costs and cost centers where your money will be spent.