F&B Fit-Out Cost Guide: Restaurants, Cafés & Lounges in Dubai

A restaurant fit-out in Dubai is one of the most cost-dense construction projects per square metre you can commission. Inside a 300 m² unit you are packing a commercial kitchen, heavy MEP, extraction, gas, drainage, acoustics, joinery, lighting and a dining room that has to look effortless — all inside a landlord's programme and a stack of authority approvals. Owners routinely under-budget because they price the room they can see and forget the machine behind it. This guide sets out indicative AED ranges by concept, where the money actually goes, the approvals you must clear, and how to phase and value-engineer without wrecking the design.

Indicative cost by concept — per square foot

Dubai F&B is budgeted per square foot far more often than per square metre, so we follow that convention here. These are indicative ranges for a fit-out into a bare or lightly-fitted unit — not fixed quotes. The spread within each band is driven by finish level, kitchen complexity and whether you inherit any base-build services.

• Café / speciality coffee / QSR: roughly AED 600–1,200 per sq ft. Compact back-of-house, limited hot cooking, counter-led service.
• Casual dining (full-service): roughly AED 1,000–1,800 per sq ft. A proper hot kitchen, full FF&E, mid-to-high finishes.
• Fine dining: roughly AED 1,800–3,000+ per sq ft. Show kitchen, premium stone and joinery, bespoke lighting, elevated acoustics.
• Bar / lounge / late-night: roughly AED 1,800–3,000+ per sq ft. Heavy bar fabrication, AV, mood lighting, acoustic isolation and often shisha extraction.

For orientation: at AED 1,400 per sq ft a 3,500 sq ft (about 325 m²) casual-dining restaurant sits near AED 4.9 million all-in. Move the finish and kitchen up to a fine-dining brief at AED 2,300 per sq ft and the same footprint approaches AED 8 million. The concept, not the square footage alone, sets the number.

The FF&E versus base-build split

Before comparing quotes you have to know which side of the line each cost sits on. Two budgets are hiding inside a fit-out:

• Base build / infrastructure: partitions, ceilings, flooring build-up, MEP first and second fix, kitchen extraction and make-up air, gas, drainage, fire systems, wet works, acoustic treatment. This is the fabric and the machine — usually the larger share.
• FF&E (furniture, fixtures & equipment): loose and fixed seating, tables, the bar and back-bar, decorative and feature lighting, joinery millwork, kitchen equipment, small wares, crockery, POS and AV.

On a casual-dining project the split often lands near 55–65% base build and construction against 35–45% FF&E, though a bar-led concept with modest cooking can invert that as the fabrication and AV climb. The trap: an owner sees a headline construction number and forgets that chairs at AED 900–2,200 each, a banquette run at AED 3,500–6,000 per linear metre, and a full kitchen equipment package can each be a six-figure line on their own.

Why the kitchen is usually the single biggest line

On almost every full-service restaurant the commercial kitchen is the heaviest single cost centre — commonly 25–40% of the whole project. It is not one number but a cluster:

• Cooking line and equipment: ranges, combi ovens, fryers, chargrills, refrigeration, cold rooms and freezers. A mid-size casual kitchen equipment package frequently runs AED 350,000–900,000; a fine-dining or high-volume line can pass AED 1.5 million.
• Stainless steel fabrication: benches, shelving, wash-up, pass and dish areas — bespoke 304-grade fabrication, not off-the-shelf.
• Extraction canopy and ductwork: the hood, grease-rated ductwork, in-line and roof-mounted extract fans, plus make-up air to balance what the hood pulls out. Undersize this and the room goes negative, doors slam and the dining room smells of the kitchen.
• Grease management: a grease interceptor (grease trap) sized to the covers and kitchen load, plus dedicated kitchen drainage laid to fall.
• Gas and fire suppression: gas supply, solenoid cut-offs, and a wet-chemical (Ansul-type) suppression system over the cooking line.

Because so much of this is engineered, imported and authority-approved, it also drives the programme. Long-lead cooking equipment and cold rooms are the items most likely to hold up handover.

MEP is the cost you cannot see

Mechanical, electrical and plumbing works are the second-heaviest block and the one owners consistently underestimate because almost none of it is visible in the finished room. A restaurant is an intensely serviced box:

• HVAC: cooling sized for a full house of diners plus kitchen heat gain in a 45–50°C summer. Fresh-air supply is mandatory for occupancy; a busy 300 m² dining room can need 20–35 tons of cooling once kitchen make-up air is added.
• Kitchen ventilation balance: the extract, make-up air and dining-room AC have to be engineered together so pressures stay right across service.
• Electrical: a distinct kitchen power demand (three-phase equipment), plus front-of-house lighting circuits, dimming, AV, POS and emergency systems. Load can force an upgraded DB or a landlord supply increase.
• Plumbing and drainage: hot and cold supply, the grease interceptor, floor gullies, and coordination with the base-build stack — the drainage invert you inherit can dictate where the kitchen even goes.
• Fire and life safety: sprinklers, detection, emergency lighting and exit signage, all tied into the building system and signed off by Civil Defence.

The approvals you must clear

Nothing opens without the sign-offs, and they run in parallel with construction, not after it. Build the approval path into the programme from week one. The core authorities:

• Dubai Municipality — Building & Food Control: the fit-out permit and the food-establishment approval. Food Control cares about kitchen layout, materials, wash-hand basins, grease interception, pest-proofing, and the separation of raw, cooked and wash zones. Get the kitchen drawings pre-checked before you build steel.
• Dubai Civil Defence (DCD): fire and life-safety approval — suppression over the cooking line, sprinkler and detection coverage, means of escape, and materials fire-rating. DCD sign-off is a hard gate for the trade licence and occupancy.
• Landlord / mall authority: in a mall or managed development the operator (for example an Emaar, Meraas or Nakheel asset) issues its own tenant fit-out guidelines, drawing approvals, contractor accreditation, working-hours rules and a fit-out deposit. These are frequently stricter than the civic minimum — extraction routing to the roof, acoustic limits and shopfront lines are common flashpoints.
• Utilities and trade licence: DEWA connection/upgrade for power and water, plus the DED trade licence that the food permit and DCD approval ultimately unlock.

The practical rule: authority drawings, kitchen layout and extraction routing should be resolved on paper before fabrication starts. A hood built and then rejected for its duct route is one of the most expensive avoidable mistakes in F&B. We cover the wider commercial process in our restaurant and hotel fit-out guide.

Shell-and-core versus fitted handover

What you are handed changes the budget more than almost any finish decision. Read the lease and the handover condition before you sign, because the two extremes are very different projects:

• Shell-and-core (bare shell): concrete floor, blockwork or nothing between you and the next unit, services brought only to a point. You build everything — ceilings, MEP distribution, extraction risers, drainage, the lot. Higher cost and longer programme, but full design freedom. Confirm the landlord has provided an adequately sized extraction riser and gas provision; retrofitting a roof duct route through an occupied building is painful.
• Fitted / ex-F&B handover: a previous operator's kitchen, drainage, extraction and sometimes cold rooms are in place. This can save serious money — but only if the infrastructure suits your concept and passes re-approval. Inherited kit that is undersized, non-compliant or simply in the wrong place can cost more to unpick than to build fresh.

Always price a proper condition survey of any fitted unit. A cold room that looks free but fails inspection is not a saving.

Per-cover budgeting — the math operators actually use

Investors think in covers (seats), not square feet, because covers tie to revenue. The arithmetic is simple and worth doing early:

1. Take the fit-out capital and divide by the number of covers to get cost per cover.
2. Sit-down concepts typically land around AED 25,000–60,000 per cover once kitchen, MEP and FF&E are in. Cafés and QSR sit lower; fine dining and design-led lounges sit at the top or beyond.
3. Sanity-check against footprint: a full-service restaurant needs roughly 1.5–2.0 m² per cover in the dining room, and back-of-house commonly eats 30–40% of the total area. A 100-cover restaurant therefore wants ~150–200 m² of dining plus ~90–120 m² of kitchen and stores.

Worked example: a 90-cover casual restaurant in about 320 m², budgeted near AED 1,400 per sq ft, comes to roughly AED 4.8 million — about AED 53,000 per cover. If the pro-forma cannot service that per-cover number, you either lift the average spend, add covers, or trim the specification. Better to confront it on a spreadsheet than mid-build.

What drives the cost up — and down

Two identical footprints can differ by a factor of two. The levers:

Pushes cost up

• A bare shell with no extraction riser, gas or drainage provided.
• A show kitchen on display — it must finish to front-of-house standard.
• Heavy bespoke joinery, natural stone, imported decorative lighting and bar fabrication.
• Serious acoustic work — essential for a lounge or a hard-surfaced fine-dining room.
• Long extraction runs to roof, structural openings, or a slab-to-slab height that forces extra steel.
• Mall handover rules — accredited contractors, night-only working, and elevated fire and finish standards.

Pulls cost down

• An ex-F&B unit with compliant, correctly-sized infrastructure you can reuse.
• A tighter menu that shrinks the cooking line and kitchen footprint.
• Standardised, repeatable furniture rather than one-off pieces — while keeping feature moments bespoke.
• Concentrating spend on the guest touchpoints (seat comfort, lighting, the bar) and value-engineering what nobody sees.

Phasing and value engineering — without gutting the design

Value engineering is not cheapening the room; it is spending the budget where guests feel it and saving where they never will. The moves that work:

• Protect the experience layer. Seat depth and foam density, the lighting scenes, the bar face and the entrance sequence are what a guest remembers — keep them. A relaxed banquette wants 52–58 cm seat depth, a 45–47 cm seat height and 40 kg/m³+ foam so it survives nightly turns.
• Engineer the invisible layer. Substitute like-for-like on concealed MEP, back-of-house finishes and non-visible structure. Nobody photographs the store-room floor.
• Standardise where you can, bespoke where it counts. Repeat one chair and one table module across the room; reserve bespoke fabrication for the bar, the feature wall and the joinery guests touch.
• Phase the non-critical. A private dining room, an outdoor terrace or a second-floor lounge can follow once the core trades — leave the risers, drainage and power stubbed so phase two is a fit-out, not a demolition.
• Never cut the kitchen to hit a date. An undersized hood, a skimped grease trap or a thin cold room comes back as a failed inspection or a broken service. This is the wrong place to save.

A realistic timeline

Programme is where optimism meets Dubai reality. Indicative durations, assuming approvals run alongside the works:

• Design, authority drawings & approvals: 4–8 weeks up front (kitchen layout and extraction routing lead this).
• Small café / QSR on site: 8–12 weeks.
• Casual restaurant, 250–400 m²: 12–20 weeks on site.
• Fine dining or multi-zone bar/lounge: 20–28 weeks, driven by bespoke joinery and imported equipment.

The usual causes of slippage are long-lead kitchen equipment and cold rooms, authority sign-offs, and mall-specific working rules. Order the kitchen package and any imported lighting early, and hold two to three weeks of float against approvals. A concept with a heavy hospitality-suite element behaves more like the hotel programmes we set out in the boutique hotel fit-out cost guide.

The bottom line

An F&B fit-out is priced by concept, not by area alone: café and QSR from around AED 600 per sq ft, casual dining in the middle, and fine dining, bars and lounges from AED 1,800 upward — or, in operator terms, roughly AED 25,000–60,000 per cover. The kitchen and MEP carry the budget, the front-of-house carries the brand, and the approvals and handover condition quietly decide whether your number holds. Get the kitchen, extraction and authority path resolved on paper first, protect the guest-facing experience, and value-engineer the parts nobody sees. Do that and the room opens on budget and performs for years.

If you are planning a restaurant, café or lounge and need a concept-appropriate budget with the kitchen and MEP scoped properly, our team handles full commercial fit-out, bespoke bar and banquette manufacturing and joinery from our Al Quasis workshop — see the range of work on our commercial page.