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A restaurant sits in Class E and can become a shop, an office, a gym or a clinic with no planning application. A hot food takeaway is sui generis and cannot. That line matters more every year as delivery grows, because a restaurant whose trade tips heavily into takeaway may be operating outside the use class it holds. Then the two things that actually kill deals: extraction, and whether hot food after 11pm is licensed.
This rules out more restaurant sites than rent does. A commercial kitchen needs ventilation and odour control taken to a suitable discharge point, usually roof level. If the route does not exist, the landlord will not consent to it, or the building above is residential, the site is not a restaurant site whatever the particulars say.
A restaurant or café is Class E(b). A hot food takeaway is sui generis. As delivery grows, the proportion of trade going out of the door becomes a planning question rather than a commercial one — and it is one enforcement officers have started asking.
Supplying hot food or drink between 11pm and 5am is late night refreshment and needs authorisation, with or without alcohol. Plenty of operators discover this after signing a lease on a site whose consent will not support the hours their model needs.
Our fee is paid by the landlord or the vendor. No fee to you and no retainer — and no reason for us to talk up a site whose extraction and hours will not carry your format.
Covers, kitchen type, whether you need late hours, how much of your trade you expect to be delivery, and whether you want external seating. The format decides which sites are physically and legally possible, and it rules out most of them quickly.
Use class and conditions, whether an extract route exists and whether the landlord will consent, the premises licence and its hours, drainage and grease trap provision, and the rating position.
Where consents are needed, they belong in the deal: a conditional lease, a longer rent-free to cover the approval period, or a break tied to a licence not being granted. Landlords accept these more readily than operators think to ask.
A commercial kitchen produces heat, grease and odour that has to be removed and discharged somewhere acceptable. In practice that usually means a duct taken to roof level, terminating above the eaves, with filtration and odour abatement sized to the cooking. It is the single most common reason a unit that looks perfect is not a restaurant.
Three separate permissions can be involved and they are frequently confused. Planning, because an external flue is usually an alteration requiring consent and is routinely conditioned on noise and odour. The landlord, because running a duct up the outside or through the building needs their agreement and, in a multi-let building, agreement about the route. And the neighbours above, because on a mixed-use building with flats over, odour and fan noise generate complaints that end in abatement notices regardless of what your lease permits.
Since September 2020 restaurants and cafés have sat in Class E(b), alongside shops, offices, gyms, clinics and nurseries. That flexibility is genuinely valuable: a restaurant unit can become something else without a planning application, which supports the value on exit and widens the market of units you can consider.
Hot food takeaways are sui generis and sit outside Class E entirely. So does a drinking establishment. The boundary was easy to police when it was about whether people sat down. It is much harder now, when a restaurant may be doing a substantial share of its covers through delivery platforms from the same kitchen.
There is no bright-line percentage, and the assessment is one of fact and degree — but a restaurant whose trade has shifted predominantly to food taken away can be operating outside its lawful use. If delivery is central to your model rather than incidental, treat the use class as something to confirm rather than assume, and take planning advice before you sign rather than after an enforcement officer asks.
Supplying hot food or hot drink to the public between 11pm and 5am is a licensable activity in its own right — late night refreshment — and it applies whether or not you sell alcohol. Food is ‘hot’ if it has been heated to be consumed above ambient temperature and is above that temperature when supplied, and the supply happens when it is handed over rather than when it is paid for.
Restaurants, takeaways, pubs and bars are not exempt. There are limited exemptions, including supply to hotel residents and vending machines. Providing late night refreshment without authorisation is a criminal offence, and the practical consequence for an operator is that a site whose premises licence stops at 11pm will not support a model that trades to midnight.
Commercial kitchens discharge fats, oils and grease, and water companies impose requirements about interception before it reaches the sewer. A grease trap or interceptor needs somewhere to sit, needs servicing, and needs to be sized for the kitchen — and retrofitting one into a unit with no space and a shallow drainage run is expensive.
Alongside it: the incoming power supply, because a full commercial kitchen draws far more than a retail unit and an upgrade is a distribution network application with cost and lead time attached; gas supply and capacity if you are cooking on gas; water pressure and hot water; and waste storage, which planning conditions frequently dictate and which a small unit on a high street often has nowhere to put.
A food business must register with the local authority at least 28 days before trading, and registration is free and cannot be refused — but it triggers inspection and the food hygiene rating that follows. Premises used only for delivery or distribution still need to register.
On rates, restaurants sit on the retail, hospitality and leisure multipliers from 1 April 2026: 38.2p below £51,000 rateable value and 43.0p from £51,000 to £499,999, both lower than the standard rates. Small business rate relief still applies separately below £12,000, tapering to £15,000. On a specialist hospitality property the assessment may be arrived at from receipts rather than from comparable rents, which means a strong trading year can feed into a higher rateable value at the next revaluation.
Because a commercial kitchen needs heat, grease and odour taken to an acceptable discharge point, usually roof level with filtration and odour abatement sized to the cooking. Three permissions can be involved: planning, because an external flue is normally an alteration requiring consent and is routinely conditioned on noise and odour; the landlord, because the duct route needs their agreement; and in practice the neighbours above, because on a building with flats over, odour and fan noise generate complaints that end in abatement notices whatever your lease says. Establish it before commissioning a fit-out design.
No, and it matters. Restaurants and cafés sit in Class E(b) and can change to a shop, office, gym or clinic with no planning application. Hot food takeaways are sui generis and sit outside Class E entirely. The boundary used to be about whether people sat down; delivery has blurred it. There is no bright-line percentage — it is a question of fact and degree — but a restaurant whose trade has shifted predominantly to food taken away can be operating outside its lawful use. If delivery is central rather than incidental, take planning advice before you sign.
Yes. Supplying hot food or hot drink to the public between 11pm and 5am is late night refreshment, a licensable activity in its own right, and it applies whether or not you sell alcohol. Food counts as hot if it was heated to be eaten above ambient temperature and is above that when handed over. Restaurants, takeaways, pubs and bars are not exempt; supply to hotel residents and vending machines are among the limited exemptions. A site whose premises licence stops at 11pm will not support a model that trades to midnight.
Restaurants sit on the retail, hospitality and leisure multipliers: 38.2p below £51,000 rateable value and 43.0p from £51,000 to £499,999, both lower than the 43.2p and 48.0p paid by other commercial property. The annual relief that used to be claimed each year is now built into the multiplier. Small business rate relief applies separately below £12,000, tapering to £15,000. Note that on specialist hospitality property the assessment can be arrived at from receipts rather than comparable rents, so a strong trading year can feed into a higher rateable value.
Register the food business with the local authority at least 28 days before you trade. Registration is free and cannot be refused, but it triggers inspection and the food hygiene rating that follows — and premises used only for delivery still need to register. Alongside that: confirm the use class supports your format, confirm the premises licence covers your hours including late night refreshment, satisfy yourself the extract route is consented, and check grease trap, power and waste storage provision. Most of those are cheaper to establish before heads of terms than after.
