A lease is the first big financial commitment most hospitality operators make, and it locks you in before you know what the space will actually cost to open. The rent figure gets all the attention. The expensive surprises usually sit somewhere else: behind the walls, and in the fine print of the lease itself. Get those wrong and a tight-margin business starts underwater on day one. Here’s what to work through before you sign anything in South East Queensland.
Check what the space is actually approved for
A retail shell that last housed a clothing shop is not automatically approved to operate as a food premises. Councils across the region regulate what each tenancy can be used for, and Brisbane City Council and the City of Gold Coast both treat a shift from retail to food premises as a material change of use. That application can run several weeks to a few months, and it carries council fees on top of the cost of the consultants who prepare it.
If you plan to serve alcohol, the timeline stretches further. A liquor licence through the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation has its own approval path, and your trading hours can be capped by the planning conditions attached to the site, not only by the licence itself. Ask the agent for the current approved use and any existing development approvals in writing before you commit. A tenancy that was already a café is the cleanest start, because much of the approval and the base infrastructure may already be in place.
The services hiding behind the walls
A café or bar needs infrastructure a clothing or homeware shop never did, and most of it is invisible when you walk through on inspection day. The two that hurt budgets are kitchen exhaust and a grease trap.
A commercial kitchen needs a mechanical exhaust canopy with make-up air, and on a fresh install that work commonly lands between $15,000 and $40,000 once ductwork and certification are included. If the canopy has to vent through a multi-storey building or a heritage facade, it climbs from there. Grease traps are the cost operators underestimate most. Trade waste from a kitchen has to pass through an approved grease arrestor before it reaches the sewer, and that approval sits with your local water authority (Urban Utilities across Brisbane, the City of Gold Coast further south). A tenancy with no existing trap may need one installed under the slab or in an external pit, which is disruptive and expensive in a building that was never plumbed for food.
Then there is power. A row of fridges and a full kitchen line can exceed the electrical capacity of a space built for racks of clothing, and a supply upgrade through Energex is rarely quick. Ask whether three-phase power is already on site.
Read the lease as carefully as the fit-out
The clauses that catch hospitality tenants are rarely about the rent. Two deserve close reading.
The first is make-good. Most commercial leases require you to return the premises to its original condition at the end of the term, which for a fitted-out kitchen and bar can mean stripping out everything you installed and handing back a bare shell. On a five-year lease that obligation can sit in the tens of thousands, and it is easy to ignore while you are focused on opening. Negotiate the make-good scope in writing now, while you still have leverage.
The second is the fit-out period. A landlord who wants a café in the space has reason to give you a rent-free or reduced-rent window while you build, and one to three months is a common ask for hospitality. Without it, you pay full rent through weeks of construction and council approvals when no money is coming in. Clarify who covers base-building works too, like an upgraded grease line or a new switchboard, because the line between landlord’s works and tenant’s works is negotiable and worth thousands either way.
Know your real fit-out budget before you commit
Hospitality is one of the more expensive fit-outs per square metre because of the services sitting behind it. A modest café fit-out in South East Queensland often starts around $1,500 per square metre, and a bar or full-kitchen venue can run past $3,000 before furniture and equipment. A 120 square metre café can therefore land anywhere between $180,000 and well over $400,000, depending on the condition of the tenancy you inherit.
Build a contingency of at least 10 to 15 per cent into that number, because older buildings hide problems that only appear once the walls come off. Knowing your realistic figure before you sign tells you whether the rent and the fit-out actually add up against your trading projections. Signing first and costing later is how operators end up stuck in a lease they cannot afford to fit out.
Get the right help early
The cheapest time to find a problem is before you sign, when you can still walk away or renegotiate. Bringing in commercial interior designers based in Brisbane while the lease is still a draft gives you people who can read a tenancy for what it will actually cost to convert and flag the council approvals a café or bar will trigger before they reach your budget. A designer who has taken hospitality projects through Brisbane and Gold Coast approvals will spot the grease-trap issue and the change-of-use problem on a first walkthrough, long before they turn into variations on a build.
A good fit-out partner pays for itself in the mistakes you avoid. Walk the space with one before the ink dries, and the lease you sign will be one you can actually open behind.
