Insights · Openings
Restaurant Pre-Opening Checklist: 90 Days to Doors Open
Most opening delays are not caused by construction. They are caused by licences, hiring and systems being started too late. This is the critical path we work to in the ninety days before a restaurant opens.
Day 90 to 61
Lock the concept and the paperwork
- Write the concept on one page: guest, occasion, average spend, service style, hours. Every later decision gets checked against it.
- Start licences early because they set your real opening date: trade licence, FSSAI, fire NOC, signage, music, and liquor permissions where they apply.
- Fix the operating budget: rent, manpower, food and beverage cost targets, utilities, and a working capital buffer for the first three months.
- Confirm the kitchen and bar layout against the menu, not the other way round. Moving a drain line later is expensive; moving a dish is not.
Day 60 to 46
Menu engineering and supply chain
- Cost every dish and drink with real vendor quotes, yields and wastage, then set prices against your target cost, not a guess.
- Cut the menu until the kitchen can execute it at peak with the station count you actually have.
- Shortlist two suppliers per critical category so a single no-show does not close the kitchen.
- Write the storage and par-stock plan: what is held, where, at what level, and who reorders.
Day 45 to 31
Hiring and structure
- Build the org chart and shift roster before you hire, so you recruit against real gaps rather than resumes.
- Hire senior first: head chef, bar lead, floor manager. They should be part of training the rest.
- Prepare offer letters, attendance, payroll and statutory compliance so week one is not spent on admin.
- Set the service standards you will actually enforce, in plain language, at a length people will read.
Day 30 to 16
Systems, SOPs and technology
- Configure the POS with the final menu, modifiers, taxes and discount rules. Test bills before guests test them.
- Set up reservations and the guest journey: booking channel, confirmation, reminder, arrival, and how you handle a full house.
- Write the SOPs that matter: opening, closing, food safety, cash handling, complaint recovery, and daily stock count. Skip the rest.
- Get the website, Google Business Profile, menu links and photos live so early searches find you before the launch.
Day 15 to 6
Training and dry runs
- Train in this order: product knowledge, then sequence of service, then speed. Reversing that order creates fast, wrong service.
- Run full kitchen trials at expected peak volume, timed, with plating photos as the reference.
- Do at least two dry-run services with friends and family, and treat every failure as a checklist item, not a bad day.
- Brief the team on the first-week plan: who opens, who closes, who solves problems on the floor.
Day 5 to 0
Soft launch and open
- Open at reduced capacity for the first few services. Full covers on day one hides nothing and fixes nothing.
- Keep a daily debrief: what broke, who owns it, when it is fixed. Fifteen minutes, every day, without exception.
- Track four numbers from day one: covers, average spend, food and beverage cost, and labour hours.
- Collect guest feedback and reviews deliberately from the first week; early reviews shape months of search visibility.
Opening a restaurant or bar in Bengaluru?
We help operators with pre-opening planning, systems, SOPs and the digital side of a launch: website, reservations and guest data ready on day one.