CHECKLIST
Opening a Venue Checklist
About an hour to read against your plan, and the order matters more than the speed: half of these carry statutory lead times that count backwards from opening night, and the expensive mistakes are the ones done twice. The food registration needs 28 days, the premises licence commonly needs longer, and the insurance must exist before the first tradesperson walks in.
- Five sections, seventeen checks, about an hour
- The lease questions that come before the lease
- Licensing items are England and Wales
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Who this checklist is for
Anyone opening a restaurant, cafe, pub or rooms in England or Wales, whether it is the first venue or the fifth, who wants the deadlines met while they are still meetable.
You have found the site but not signed the lease
Three of the most expensive discoveries happen after signing: a planning use class that does not allow what you plan (Class E covers most cafes and restaurants; drinking establishments sit outside it, and a change of use is months), a lease clause vetoing late opening or kitchen extraction, and a rateable value nobody priced. The first section runs before the pen comes out.
You are opening in six weeks
Count backwards. Food business registration must reach the council at least 28 days before opening, free and unrefusable but immovable. The premises licence carries a consultation period, PAYE takes days, and pension duties bite from the first hire, not the first payroll. The checklist orders everything by its statutory clock, which is the only order that survives contact with a builder’s overrun.
You have quietly already opened
Soft launches do not suspend the law. The backfill list is short and urgent: employers’ liability at £5 million with the certificate displayed, the written fire risk assessment, the tips policy the 2024 rules require wherever tips are more than occasional, and the opening stock count, because the GP figure is only ever as honest as the count it starts from.
FACTS
The 28 days nobody budgets
Food business registration must reach the local authority at least 28 days before you open. It costs nothing, cannot be refused, and is still the deadline most new venues discover three weeks out. Opening unregistered is an offence, and the first inspection sets the hygiene rating that lives on the door.
17 checks
Five sections, ordered by statutory clock
28 days
The food registration’s immovable lead time
FACTS
£5 million before the first shift
Employers’ liability insurance at £5 million minimum is a legal requirement from the first employee, trial shifts included, with the certificate displayed. It is joined before opening night by the gas safety and extraction interlock sign-off and the fire risk assessment, because the certificate is what the insurer reads after a fire, and the assessment is what the fire officer asks for first.