Opening a Restaurant in Toronto, in the Right Order

Most people open a restaurant with a checklist. A checklist tells you what to do. It does not tell you what to do first, and in this business the order is where the money is lost. Sign the wrong lease in month one and you can spend the next eight months paying rent on a room you are not allowed to cook in.

Here is the rough sequence we would follow, and the reasoning behind it. Rules and processes change, so treat this as a map, not a legal document. Confirm every step with the City of Toronto and with your local health unit before you act on it.

1. Settle the concept and the arithmetic before you look at space

You need three things on paper before a real estate listing is allowed to tempt you: what you are selling, roughly what it costs you to make, and how many covers or orders a day you need to break even.

This is not a business plan for a bank. It is one page. A draft menu of eight to fifteen items, a food cost estimate for each, a rent number you can live with, and a staffing shape — how many people on the floor and in the kitchen at once. If that page does not work on a spreadsheet, it will not work on Dundas Street.

The concept also drives your space requirements. A bakery needs different venting than a wok station. A licensed room needs different washrooms and occupancy math than a ten-seat takeout counter. Decide first, then shop. Our guide on how to price a menu when food costs keep moving covers the arithmetic side in more detail.

2. Register the business, but keep it cheap at this stage

You need a legal entity to sign a lease, open a bank account, and apply for permits. Sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation — talk to an accountant for twenty minutes, because the answer depends on your money and your partners, not on what is popular.

Alongside that, you will eventually need a CRA business number, an HST account, and WSIB coverage once you have staff. Payroll setup can wait until you have a hire date. Do not spend heavily here. A registration and a bank account is enough to go looking.

3. The trap: signing a lease for a space that cannot be permitted

This is the one that ends restaurants before they open.

A space being empty does not mean a restaurant is allowed in it. Zoning may not permit a restaurant use at that address. The building may not permit the exhaust run you need. The landlord's lease may cap your hours, your seats, or ban cooking odours outright. The previous tenant may have operated without the approvals you will be asked for, so "it used to be a café" proves nothing.

Agents will tell you it is fine. Landlords will tell you it is fine. Neither of them signs your permit.

The fix is simple and nobody enjoys it: make your offer to lease conditional. Conditional on zoning confirmation for your intended use, on obtaining the building permits for your buildout, and on a licence where you need one. Give yourself a real window — weeks, not days. If a landlord will not accept conditions, that tells you something about the space.

4. What to actually check before you sign

Walk the space with these questions written down:

• Zoning. Confirm with the City whether your use is permitted at that address, and whether there are conditions attached.
• Exhaust and make-up air. Where does the duct run, and does the landlord allow it to the roof? This is the single most expensive surprise in a restaurant buildout.
• Grease interceptor. Is there one, is it sized for your use, and where would a new one go?
• Gas, electrical, water service. Is there enough capacity for the equipment you drew on your one-page plan? Upgrades are slow and expensive.
• Washrooms and accessibility. Count, location, and whether the entrance can meet current requirements.
• Occupancy and seating. What the fire and building rules allow may be well under what the room looks like it holds.
• Patio. If a patio is part of your math, confirm the program and the approvals separately. Do not assume.
• Previous permits. Ask the landlord for the permit history and any outstanding orders on the building.

Bring a contractor or a designer who has done restaurants in Toronto to the second viewing. An hour of their time before you sign is the cheapest hour you will buy all year.

5. Call the health unit early — before drawings are final

In Toronto, Toronto Public Health reviews food premises. Outside the city, it is your regional health unit — Peel, York, Durham, Halton. They would rather look at your plans before the walls go up than after.

Bring your layout, your equipment list, your menu, and your sinks. Sinks are where people get caught: hand sinks in the right places, a three-compartment sink, a separate prep sink, and sometimes a mop sink. Fixing that on paper costs nothing. Fixing it after tile is down costs real money and real weeks.

At least one person on each shift will need food handler certification. Get yours done early — it is a short course and one less thing in the final month.

6. Permits and licences, roughly in order

After the lease is conditional and the plans are reviewed, this is the usual run:

1. Building permit for the buildout, through Toronto Building.
2. Mechanical, plumbing, electrical approvals as part of or alongside that, with ESA for electrical and TSSA involvement for gas appliances.
3. Business licence from Municipal Licensing and Standards for an eating establishment.
4. Liquor licence from the AGCO if you are serving alcohol. Start this one as early as your lease allows — it involves posting notices and municipal input, and it is not a same-week process.
5. Sign permit if you are putting anything on the facade.
6. Fire inspection and final health inspection before you open the doors.

Also line up commercial waste and grease collection, because you cannot legally run without it and nobody thinks of it until week one.

7. Build, hire, train — in that order

Buildout always runs long. Do not set an opening date you have announced publicly until mechanical inspection has passed. Hire your kitchen lead early enough to have input on equipment placement. Hire floor staff close to the end, because people who are hired and then told to wait six weeks go somewhere else.

8. The digital pieces, and when they matter

You do not need a website on day one of this process. You need it about six to eight weeks before you open, and in this order:

Google Business Profile first. Claim it as soon as you have a confirmed address. Mark it as opening soon. This is the listing people see when they search your street, and it matters more than your homepage in the first months — we wrote about why your Google Business Profile is your real homepage.

Then the website, with the menu and the hours on it as text. Not a PDF. Not an image. A page Google can read and a phone can load.

Then online ordering, if takeout is part of your plan. Build your own channel before you lean on delivery apps, so your regulars have somewhere direct to go from the start.

Then phone coverage. The weeks after opening are when your phone rings most and when you have the least capacity to answer it. Decide now what happens to a call at 7pm on a Friday. If you want a sense of what a build like that looks like end to end, our restaurant page walks through the ordering and phone-answering side.

9. Confirm everything

Municipal requirements, health unit procedures, and licence applications change. Fees change. Programs get replaced. What was true for the place that opened down the street two years ago may not be true for you.

Before you commit money at any stage, call the City of Toronto and your health unit directly and ask. They answer. It costs you a phone call and it has saved more restaurants than any piece of advice in this article.