Restaurant and café fit-out in London

The kitchen and the services usually account for more than front of house does. Extraction runs, make-up air, gas interlock, suppression, drainage and grease management are the elements that move a hospitality price, followed by the bar and joinery specification. We price from a survey and an equipment schedule rather than from floor area, and a firm figure follows a site visit.

A café in a unit that already has capacity is largely a counter, services connections and finishes, so it is one of the shorter commercial programmes. What extends it is a new extraction route, a drainage alteration, or an overnight-only access window inside a trading centre. We count the programme back from your opening date and show what has to be on site by when.

Yes: equipment set out and installed, canopies, ductwork, fans, attenuation, make-up air, odour control, and the gas interlock that shuts the supply down if ventilation fails. It is all commissioned and certified rather than simply fitted. Where you are buying the catering equipment directly, we co-ordinate the delivery date and make the services connections.

For an external flue or duct on the elevation, almost always. The borough assesses discharge height, odour control and fan noise, and neighbours may be consulted. In a conservation area or on a listed building the constraints are tighter still. We establish the route and the likely conditions at the feasibility stage, because it is the single most common cause of a delayed opening.

Yes. Bar structure, bar top, back bar, under-bar services and drainage, pass counters, host stands, banquette seating and wall panelling. These are made to the surveyed dimensions of the room rather than to a drawing of it, which matters in old buildings where nothing is square. Services under a bar are set out before the joinery is templated.

Regularly, and usually overnight. The crew works to the centre's out-of-hours access with a permit each night, booked dock and lift slots, hoarding kept presentable, and the unit left safe and clean before opening each morning. Kitchen extraction inside a centre also has to tie into the landlord's system, which is agreed in the approval package before work starts.

Often not. Cafés and restaurants both sit within Class E, so converting a shop to a restaurant usually does not need planning permission for the use itself. A drinking establishment or a hot food takeaway sits outside Class E and does. Either way the extraction, the shopfront and the signage may need their own consents, which is where the applications actually arise.

Register the food business with the local authority before you open. The inspection looks at cleanable finishes to walls, floors and ceilings, hand-wash basins in the right places, separation of raw and ready-to-eat preparation, temperature-controlled storage, adequate ventilation, pest-proofing and a compliant waste route. We build to those requirements rather than treating them as something to remedy afterwards.