Retail space checklist for a food tenant: what to ask before the lease

A food business asks more of a retail unit than a shop selling packaged goods. It needs cooking services, a route for the extract, a way in for deliveries and a way out for waste. This list follows that chain. The footfall and neighbor questions sit in the retail space guide.

What to take away

The extract route and your right to use it decide whether the unit can cook. Confirm both first.
Deliveries and waste need a rear path that does not cross the sales floor, or a written plan for when it does.
The use table treats food as its own question, so ask the local office in writing.
Anything still unknown on signing day becomes a condition of the lease with an outside date.

The extract route and the cooking services

Start with the extract, because a duct that cannot be routed is a unit you cannot cook in. Trace the route from the cooking area to the outside and ask whether you have the right to use it. Get that right in writing.

Commercial kitchen exhaust is designed against a standard such as NFPA 96, so ask who designs the system, who owns the route and who approves where it leaves the building.

Then find the electrical panel and photograph it. Note the service capacity and any spare ways. Find the water, drainage and any gas, note where each enters, and check that they reach where the kitchen needs them. A pipe run across the floor is a cost to price early.

Check what heating and cooling is installed, how old it is, and who maintains and replaces it. Look at the floor, walls and ceiling for damp, staining or repairs, and look for data entry points and the connectivity at the address. The sequence and risks of any allowance are in tenant improvements.

Note what the previous tenant left: fixtures, counters, shelving, lighting. Ask who owns each item and whether it must be removed. Get it in the lease, along with an agreement that you will not be asked to remove them at the end.

Deliveries in and waste out

Find the rear access before anything else. How deliveries arrive, at what hours, and whether they cross the sales floor decide how the shop can open each morning and what the customer sees while stock comes in.

Waste is the second route. Ask where it goes, whether there is space to store it, whether trade waste is collected separately and who arranges the collection. Look at the service yard or alley: its lighting, its security, and who else uses it.

Check the stockroom size against your actual stockholding, on the shelving you use. A room that fits on a plan may not fit a real order. Then look at staff facilities and whether there is anywhere for a staff member to sit.

Locate the restrooms and confirm whether they are for staff only or must serve customers. The landlord's and your obligations for accessible entrances and restrooms should be settled in the lease rather than assumed, and ADA compliance and building codes covers the rules for leased commercial space.

What the local office says about food

Ask the planning office where the unit sits in its zoning district and how the use table treats your use: permitted, conditional or absent. "Shop" is not a single category in most use tables, so name the food trade you will actually run.

Ask whether your use needs a change of use application and what it involves. Ask about signage rules, whether an overlay such as a historic or design district applies, and what the rules say about hours, outdoor trading and deliveries.

Ask what licenses your goods or services require and which office issues them. The FDA publishes the Food Code, a model that local, state, tribal and federal regulators use to develop or update their own food safety rules, so ask which local version applies to you.

Get every answer in writing and keep it with the lease file. The enquiry may take weeks to answer, so start it first. The way these enquiries work, and what to do when the answer is conditional, is covered in zoning and permits.

Documents a food tenant should ask for

Ask for these and read them before an offer, not after. Each one answers a question the visit cannot.

The lease form or heads of terms, with permitted use, hours, delivery windows and any exclusives held by other tenants.
The center or building rules, if any, with the current version dated.
The certificate of occupancy or local equivalent, showing what the space is approved for.
The condition schedule for handover, with the delivery condition defined in words and on a plan.
The service charge or operating expense budget and the last reconciliation.
The landlord's requirements for your fit-out submission, including what they must approve and how long they take.

The landlord's list sits beside the unit and the permission in retail space requirements, where the three documents are compared.

Who answers each question

The table pairs each food-trade question with the person who can answer it, and the evidence worth keeping in the lease file.

Question	Who answers	Keep as evidence
Can the extract be routed and used?	Landlord and the system designer	Written right of use, route marked on a plan
Do the services reach the kitchen?	Landlord, with your contractor	Photographs of panel, water, drainage and gas
Where do deliveries and waste go?	Landlord or center management	Dated building rules, route on a plan
Is food a permitted use here?	Planning office	Written answer on the use table
Which licenses apply?	The office the planning office names	List of licenses and issuing offices
Who owns what was left behind?	Landlord	Lease clause on fixtures and removal

Before you sign

Where the street or district is itself still in question, the comparison method in location selection comes before any of this. Once the unit is the right one, check the list below.

The extract route and your right to use it are confirmed in writing.
Every unknown from the sections above is resolved, or the lease is conditional on it with an outside date.
The rent commencement date is tied to delivery in the agreed condition, not to a calendar date.
The permitted use clause covers what you may sell in two years, not only what you open with.
You have a photographic record of the unit's condition on the day you take it.

Common questions

Do I need the planning enquiry for a unit that was already a shop?

Yes, if your trade differs at all from the last one, and especially if it involves food, alcohol, late hours or outdoor seating. "Shop" is not a single category in most use tables.

What if the extract cannot be routed?

Then the unit cannot take cooking. Make the lease conditional on an approved route, with an outside date, or look at another unit.

How long does this take?

Two visits at different hours, a morning with the documents, and a written enquiry to the local authority that may take weeks to answer. Start the enquiry first.