Restaurant & Café Fit-Outs

Occupant load decides more than seating

How many people you are permitted to have in the space drives exits, washroom count and accessibility provision. It also decides your occupancy classification, and that is where the step change happens.

Burnaby, for example, classifies a food service establishment at an occupant load of thirty or fewer as a business and personal services occupancy. Above thirty it becomes an assembly occupancy, with different requirements throughout. Other municipalities have their own thresholds.

A business plan built on sixty covers in a space that legally seats thirty-eight is a different business. This is knowable before you sign.

Everything above the cooking line

• Grease exhaust. A commercial kitchen exhaust system designed to NFPA 96, with fire suppression, and a route to the roof that physically exists.
• Make-up air. Air extracted has to be replaced, tempered, and balanced. Undersized make-up air is why doors are hard to open and why the dining room is cold.
• Odour control. Some municipalities require additional treatment where a nuisance cannot be ruled out — a real cost, and a rooftop equipment and structural question.
• Grease interceptor. Required for food and beverage premises, including coffee. Sizing and location need mechanical design and are a drainage problem, not a fitting.

Health approval is a prerequisite, not a formality

Fraser Health or Vancouver Coastal Health, depending on where you are, will review and stamp plans — and in several municipalities that approval is required before the building permit will be issued. In Burnaby it also removes the application from the fast-track lane.

Plans need the seating layout, washroom provision including accessibility, the cooking equipment list, hood and suppression details, and the garbage, storage and slop sink areas resolved. This is not the drawing you produce after the permit; it is part of getting one.

Reclassifying the building

Where a restaurant moves into a building that was not previously an assembly occupancy, the building itself may need to be reclassified and upgraded to current codes. Burnaby states this plainly. It can mean sprinklers, fire separations or exiting work on a building you do not own, arriving on your project.

It is the single largest hidden risk in a restaurant fit-out, and it is visible from a walkthrough and a look at the building’s permit history.

Then there is the liquor licence

Occupant load verification is often a separate process with the fire department, producing stamped drawings and occupant load signage. It runs alongside — not after — the building permit, and it has its own requirements.

Every municipality runs this differently and the details change. The way to find out what your project actually involves for a project like this is to look at the unit before you commit to it: occupant load, exiting, washroom count, ceiling height, and what the existing mechanical and electrical will support.

We do that as a unit feasibility check, and act as the owner's agent on the permit application afterwards, so the city communication and the drawings sit in one place. A registered architect reviews the design for compliance with the building code and the local bylaw, and provides sign and seal where the project requires it.