Cover planning, in real numbers
Covers are the revenue. Everything else in the design is either supporting them or getting in their way.
| Element | Dimension | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Table edge per diner | 600 mm minimum, 750 mm comfortable | Below 600 mm a two-top feels like a queue |
| Two-top table | 700 × 700 mm | Anything smaller and a main plus a side will not fit |
| Four-top table | 900 × 900 mm or 1,200 × 750 mm | Square seats four better; rectangular combines better |
| Chair pull-out behind a diner | 450 mm | Plus circulation, which is separate |
| Main circulation aisle | 1,200 mm | Service and customer movement together |
| Secondary aisle between tables | 900 mm | 750 mm only where staff do not pass |
| Area per cover, casual dining | 16 – 20 sq ft including circulation | QSR 11–14; fine dining 22–30 |
| Banquette depth | 600 mm seat, 1,050 mm overall | Banquettes buy 15–20% more covers on the same wall |
The kitchen sets the covers, not the other way round
Back of house, and the ratio nobody wants to hear
Between 30 and 40 per cent of a restaurant’s area is kitchen, wash-up, dry store, cold store, staff change and waste. That proportion is not negotiable by design; it is set by the menu.
- Fix the menu first. Number of covers at peak, cuisine, whether you bake, whether you fry, whether you serve alcohol. Each answer adds equipment and equipment adds area.
- Lay the equipment before the walls. A kitchen consultant’s equipment layout is the base drawing; the architecture arranges itself around it.
- Separate the flows. Raw in, waste out, clean crockery, dirty crockery and staff movement should cross as few times as possible. Every crossing is a hygiene risk and a service delay.
- Wash-up is bigger than you think. Ten to fifteen per cent of back-of-house area, with a three-sink arrangement, a dishwasher and somewhere to stack.
- Cold and dry storage are sized by delivery frequency, not by menu length. Daily deliveries halve the store; weekly deliveries double it.
- Staff facilities are a licensing matter, not a courtesy. Changing space, lockers and a WC that is not the customer one.
Exhaust, grease and the thing that kills projects
The single most common cause of a restaurant fit-out stalling is discovering in week six that there is no viable route for the kitchen exhaust. Resolve it in week one.
- Establish the discharge point before you sign the lease. Above roof level, away from windows, with the landlord’s written consent and, in a mixed-use building, the neighbours’ tolerance.
- Size the hood to the equipment, not the room: roughly 0.25–0.5 m/s face velocity across the hood opening, which on a typical 3 m island hood is 6,000–9,000 m³/h.
- Make-up air is half the system. Extracting 8,000 m³/h without supplying it pulls the dining room air into the kitchen, cools nothing and slams every door.
- Grease filtration. Baffle filters at the hood plus an electrostatic precipitator or UV unit before discharge, if there is any residential neighbour within reach of the plume. Budget ₹9–₹28 lakh for the full duct, fan, ESP and make-up air package.
- Access for cleaning. Access doors every 3 m along the duct run. A duct that cannot be cleaned is a fire that has not happened yet.
- Fire suppression over the cooking line — a wet chemical system interlinked to the gas shut-off, not a fire extinguisher on the wall.
Acoustics, which decides how long people stay
A dining room with hard floors, glass, exposed ceilings and no soft surfaces runs at 1.2–1.6 seconds of reverberation. At that level conversation raises its own volume until nobody can hear anything, and the average dwell time falls. Getting to 0.8 seconds is a specification decision worth 3–6% of the fit-out.
| Surface | What to specify | Absorption gained |
|---|---|---|
| Ceiling | Acoustic raft or a sprayed absorptive finish over 40–60% of the area | The largest single gain available |
| Banquette backs | Upholstered, 50 mm foam over a perforated board | Absorbs at seated head height, where it counts |
| Walls | Fabric-wrapped panels or fluted timber over a mineral wool cavity | Controls flutter across the room |
| Floor | Hard is acceptable if the ceiling is treated | Carpet in a restaurant is a maintenance decision, not an acoustic one |
| Glass | Heavy lined curtains or a secondary treatment on large glazed runs | Glass is the worst surface in the room |
Budget 3–6% of the fit-out, or ₹120–₹400 per sq ft, for a full acoustic package.
No operator has ever asked us to make the restaurant quieter before opening. Several have asked afterwards, and by then the ceiling is finished and the answer is four times the price.
Greenbox commercial fit-out lead
Fit-out rates by format
| Format | ₹ per sq ft, ex-GST | Programme | What drives it |
|---|---|---|---|
| QSR or café, 800–1,500 sq ft | ₹2,600 – 4,200 | 6 – 9 weeks | Counter, seating, basic kitchen shell, signage |
| Casual dining, 2,000–3,500 sq ft | ₹3,200 – 5,200 | 10 – 14 weeks | Full front of house, bar, acoustics, toilets, kitchen civil and MEP |
| Premium or bar-led | ₹5,000 – 8,500 | 14 – 20 weeks | Bespoke joinery, feature lighting, full acoustics, facade |
| Add: kitchen equipment | ₹18 – 60 L for 100 covers | Lead time 8–14 weeks | Usually procured by the operator directly |
| Add: exhaust, duct, ESP, make-up air | ₹9 – 28 L | Runs with the civil programme | Discharge route and neighbour sensitivity |
Add 18% GST. Kitchen equipment is a separate capital line and is excluded from the per-sq-ft rates.
Lighting, and the reason a room photographs well
Restaurant lighting is the cheapest lever on perceived quality and the one most often left to a supplier’s catalogue. Four rules cover most of it.
- Light the table, not the room. A pool of 150–250 lux on the table against 40–70 lux of ambient is what makes a dining room feel considered. A uniformly lit room at 300 lux feels like a canteen at any price point.
- 2700K in the dining room, 4000K in the kitchen. Warm light flatters food and skin; cool light lets a chef see a sauce break. Never mix the two where a customer can see both.
- CRI 90 minimum, and R9 above 50. R9 is the deep red index. Below 50, every piece of meat and every tomato on the plate looks grey, and nobody will be able to tell you why the food looks wrong.
- Put the dimming on scenes, not on a rotary. Lunch, afternoon, dinner and clean-down are four different settings, and a staff member with a dimmer knob will settle on the brightest one by the second week.
Where we work
We design restaurant and café interiors nationally and deliver them ourselves across Mumbai and the MMR. For Mumbai licensing sequences, mixed-use building constraints, night working and local rates, see restaurant interior designers in Mumbai. Itemised budgets are on restaurant interior cost in India.
Selected commercial work by Greenbox Design Studio. Tap any image to enlarge.
Frequently asked questions
How much of a restaurant should be kitchen?+
Thirty to forty per cent of the total area, covering the kitchen, wash-up, dry and cold store, staff change and waste holding. The proportion is set by the menu, not by the designer. A menu with frying, baking and a cold section needs more back of house than a menu with one of those.
What does a restaurant fit-out cost per square foot in India?+
₹2,600–₹4,200 per sq ft for a QSR or café of 800–1,500 sq ft, ₹3,200–₹5,200 for casual dining of 2,000–3,500 sq ft, and ₹5,000–₹8,500 for premium and bar-led formats, all ex-GST. Kitchen equipment is separate at ₹18–60 lakh for 100 covers, and the exhaust package at ₹9–28 lakh.
How many square feet per cover should I allow?+
Eleven to fourteen sq ft per cover for a QSR, sixteen to twenty for casual dining and twenty-two to thirty for fine dining, all including circulation. Banquette seating along a wall typically buys fifteen to twenty per cent more covers than free-standing tables on the same footprint.
Why does the kitchen exhaust matter so much at design stage?+
Because there has to be a route to a legal discharge point, and in a mixed-use building there often is not one that the landlord and the neighbours will accept. Establishing it before the lease is signed prevents the commonest cause of a stalled fit-out. The duct, fan, filtration and make-up air package costs ₹9–28 lakh and needs to be designed, not improvised.
How do I keep a restaurant from being too loud?+
Treat the ceiling first — an acoustic raft or absorptive finish over 40–60% of it — then upholster the banquette backs, which absorb at seated head height. That takes a typical hard-surfaced dining room from 1.2–1.6 seconds of reverberation to around 0.8. Budget 3–6% of the fit-out, or ₹120–₹400 per sq ft.
How long does a restaurant fit-out take?+
Six to nine weeks for a QSR or café, ten to fourteen for casual dining and fourteen to twenty for a premium or bar-led format. Licensing runs in parallel and can take eight to twenty weeks on its own, so it starts on day one rather than when construction finishes.