How much does it cost to start a restaurant?
About $223,000 all in for a small one, opened by one founder in an American city: $146,000 to open the doors and $77,200 to keep going for the a year it typically takes to pay its way. Below, every item at low, typical and high with where it comes from — and your own quote, for your country, your town, how you start and the money you have.
To open: $146,000
Kitchen equipment (used / topping up a fitted kitchen): $50,000 ($25,000–$115,000). Restaurant startup breakdowns (RestOps / startupcosthub 2026): kitchen equipment $75,000–$115,000 new; a second-generation kitchen with hood already in place needs a fraction
Remodel: dining room, finishes, bar: $45,000 ($25,000–$100,000). 2026 restaurant guides: second-generation space $100–$250/sq ft and saves $30k–$150k against a shell; a cosmetic refresh of 900 sq ft sits well below
Furniture, tableware and smallwares: $12,000 ($5,000–$25,000). Our estimate: 30 seats, plates, glassware, pans
POS terminals and kitchen screen: $3,000 ($1,200–$6,000). Toast pricing (2025): Starter Kit $0 upfront or $1,203 with handheld; Point of Sale plan $69/mo; third-party POS hardware $1,000–$3,000 (Software Advice retail calculator)
Health, building and sign permits: $5,000 ($2,000–$15,000). Our estimate: food-service permits plus building permit for alterations; city-dependent
Liquor licence (beer and wine): $2,000 ($0–$15,000). Restaurant startup guides (2026): liquor licence $300–$400,000+, heavily state-dependent; beer-and-wine licences sit at the low end; $0 if no alcohol
Architect / permit drawings: $5,000 ($2,000–$15,000). Our estimate: drawings needed for building permit on alterations
Insurance, first year: $5,000 ($2,500–$10,000). Shopify 'Retail store monthly expenses' (2025), citing Insureon medians: general liability $42/mo, business owner's policy $95/mo, workers' comp $86/mo; restaurants add property, liquor and workers' comp (estimate)
Opening food and drink stock: $6,000 ($3,000–$12,000). estimate (current template $5,000)
Website, sign and opening marketing: $6,000 ($2,000–$15,000). SBA-style estimate in sim-launch-costs.ts header: small-business website $2,000–$10,000 by a freelancer (Clutch/UpCity surveys); plus soft-opening events
Forming the company: $800 ($150–$2,500). An LLC's state filing is $50–$500 (state fee schedules), plus an EIN (free) and a registered agent; the World Bank measured the procedures at about 1% of income per capita, about $850 (Doing Business 2020); a lawyer's formation package $500–$2,000.
Lease deposit: $4,170 ($2,100–$18,000). Two to three months' rent is usual for a first-time tenant (Aquila Commercial; REBusiness, restaurant lease counsel). 1,000 sq ft typical. Colliers US Retail Q3 2025: average asking rent $25.53/sq ft/yr (year-end 2025 $25.69); CBRE Q3 2025 neighbourhood/strip centres $24.92; Shopify cites malls ~$33 and general retail ~$25 (2024)
Rent while you fit out, before opening: $2,080 ($0–$18,000). Landlords often give a few months rent-free for a build-out, often used up by permits before work starts (NYC restaurant lease counsel, DHC Legal); none to three months paid.
To keep going until it pays its way: $77,200
Running costs while sales build: $22,000 ($5,520–$88,800). POS and online ordering software, Electricity, gas and water, Repairs and maintenance, Pest control, linen, waste, grease trap, Marketing, Internet and music licence, until it breaks even; sales are taken to grow evenly to cover them, so about half is needed. Break-even: Food-service break-even guides (restroworks/kitchennmbrs vendor data, 2025): most food businesses 6–18 months; café/bar 6–10, fast casual 6–12, casual 8–15, fine dining 12–24
Rent while sales build: $12,500 ($3,150–$72,000). The premises' monthly cost above, until it breaks even, half of it covered by sales as they grow.
Your own living costs until it can pay you: $42,700 ($21,400–$85,400). A one-person household spends about $3,560 a month in America (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2021–22); nothing is paid to you until the business breaks even.
All in: $223,000
About $223,000 all in ($100,000–$613,000): $146,000 to open and $77,200 to keep going for the a year it typically takes to pay its way.
With $10,000 of your own you are $213,000 short: borrowed as an SBA 7(a) or bank loan at 11% over 5 years, about $4,640 a month.
The trade's published range, before the months it takes to pay its way: $95,000–$375,500. Toast restaurant startup guide: $95,000 to over $2m; RestaurantOwner.com Cost-to-Open survey (350+ independents): 25th percentile $175,500, median $375,500; taking over a fitted kitchen $75k–$150k (sim-launch-costs.ts)
How much does it cost to start a restaurant?
About $223,000 all in ($100,000–$613,000) for a small one, my own premises, in an American city. To open: Kitchen equipment (used / topping up a fitted kitchen) $50,000; Remodel: dining room, finishes, bar $45,000; Furniture, tableware and smallwares $12,000; POS terminals and kitchen screen $3,000; Health, building and sign permits $5,000; Liquor licence (beer and wine) $2,000; Architect / permit drawings $5,000; Insurance, first year $5,000; Opening food and drink stock $6,000; Website, sign and opening marketing $6,000; Forming the company $800; Lease deposit $4,170; Rent while you fit out, before opening $2,080 — $146,000. To keep going for the a year it typically takes to break even: running costs while sales build $22,000; rent while sales build $12,500; your own living costs until it can pay you $42,700 — $77,200. The trade's published startup range is $95,000–$375,500 (Toast restaurant startup guide: $95,000 to over $2m; RestaurantOwner.com Cost-to-Open survey (350+ independents): 25th percentile $175,500, median $375,500; taking over a fitted kitchen $75k–$150k (sim-launch-costs.ts)), which leaves the months before it pays its way out.
What does SparkTower's simulator pay to open it?
The simulator pays the one-off opening costs before the first customer — the running costs and the founder's living it plays month by month: Kitchen equipment $45,000; Remodelling: dining room, finishes and furniture $36,000; Lease deposit (two months' rent) $3,600; Rent while you fit out, before opening (two months) $3,600; Licences, permits, insurance $5,000; Opening stock $5,000; Till and ordering system $3,000; Forming the company $2,000; Opening marketing $5,000. A small restaurant in a second-generation (already-fitted) space: $175k–$750k is the usual range for a new build (Toast restaurant startup-cost guide; RestaurantOwner.com startup survey); taking over a fitted kitchen, $75k–$150k. Thirty seats in about 900 square feet (October 2026): the covers a restaurant from nothing reaches in its first two years here, where a 1,500-square-foot room at $3,000 a month is one real restaurants fill to about $600,000 a year (occupancy a median 5.7% of sales, National Restaurant Association, Restaurant Operations Data Abstract 2024). Plus the lease: a deposit of about two months' rent (two to three is usual for a first US tenant, and restaurant landlords ask for at least two — Aquila Commercial; REBusiness, restaurant lease counsel), and rent through the fit-out before the doors open (restaurants usually win three to six months free during a build-out, often used up by permits before work starts — NYC restaurant lease counsel, DHC Legal); the remodel at about $40 a square foot of an already-fitted (second-generation) space, which runs 30–50% below a bare shell at $155 a square foot and up (Cushman & Wakefield 2025, via GrowthFactor).
How much of that do you keep?
$87,000 of it — the kit, fit-out or stock it bought — is still yours afterwards, something a buyer would pay for and a lender would lend against; the other $21,200 is spent.
What if my own money doesn't cover it?
With $10,000 of your own you would be about $213,000 short. Borrowed as an SBA 7(a) or bank loan at 11% over 5 years, that is about $4,640 a month. Most founders borrow the rest. A small-business term loan runs about 11% a year over 5 years (SBA 7(a) loans are the prime rate plus 3 to 6.5 points), repaid every month from the start — before the business has found its customers. In SparkTower's restaurant simulator the founder starts with $120,000 of their own money; the launch costs come out of it and leave $11,800 to trade on, with nothing borrowed.
Can you start a restaurant with no money?
Not in full: lenders want the owner to put in about 20% (the SBA's own floor for a start-up is 10%), and lend against the kit, fit-out and stock a launch buys, not its marketing or a software build. What a founder with nothing does is open smaller — a ghost-kitchen station selling through delivery apps — on about $18,300 of essentials (ghost-kitchen deposit and first month $4,000; basic cooking equipment $8,000; licences, food permit and insurance $3,000; opening stock $2,000; delivery-app set-up and packaging $1,000; forming the company $300), borrowed as a microloan (the SBA's are up to $50,000, at 8–13%) or, for a few thousand dollars, on a card at about 22%. The rest is bought once the business can afford it. A delivery-only kitchen: shared or ghost-kitchen space at $1k–$5k a month, opened for $10k–$30k (CloudKitchens and Kitchen United pricing as reported by Restaurant Business; The Food Corridor's shared-kitchen rates of $15–$40 an hour).
Will it earn the money back?
That depends on what you charge, how many customers you win and what your rivals do. The free restaurant simulator pays these costs before it opens, borrows what the founder's cash doesn't cover, and plays the business forward against real rivals, so you can see whether it earns them back before you spend them.
What it costs to start others like it
- Cost to start a small-town business — $126,000 all in
- Cost to start a café — $155,000 all in
- Cost to start a salon or barber — $128,000 all in
- Cost to start a gym or studio — $208,000 all in
- Cost to start a food truck — $116,000 all in
- Cost to start a bakery — $145,000 all in
- Cost to start a retail shop — $160,000 all in
- Cost to start a cleaning service — $27,100 all in
- Cost to start a landscaping business — $53,900 all in
- Cost to start an auto repair garage — $156,000 all in
- Cost to start a daycare or nursery — $117,000 all in
- Cost to start a plumbing or electrical trade — $55,400 all in
- Cost to start a construction company — $80,700 all in
- Cost to start a trucking company — $113,000 all in
- Cost to start a solar installer — $99,000 all in
- Cost to start a property developer — $937,000 all in