A fit-out is a commercial decision with a deadline attached.
Restaurant, retail and office fit-outs delivered to an opening date — front of house that earns its rent, back of house that works, and a programme built around the lease.
Every week between handover and opening is rent without revenue.
Commercial clients rarely have a design problem alone. They have a lease that started, a fit-out period that is finite, staff who have been hired, and a date that has been announced. The design has to be good; the programme has to be right.
That changes how the work is run. We plan backwards from the opening date, identify the long-lead items — joinery, furniture, equipment, anything imported — and order them against the critical path rather than in the order they get decided. We keep front and back of house in scope together, because a beautiful dining room with an unworkable service route will lose money every night it trades.
And we design for the commercial reality: covers per square metre, sightlines, queue behaviour, staff circulation, durability under actual footfall, and the cost of maintaining a finish that gets touched two hundred times a day.
WorkplaceRooms that hold a meeting
RetailFixtures that sell
Front of houseThe first ninety secondsCommercial fit-out scope.
From a shell unit or an existing trading space through to the day the doors open.
[VERIFY] final inclusions Scope is confirmed per project after survey. This list describes what this service line normally covers, not a fixed package.
- Feasibility and space planning against the trading model — covers, desks, fixtures, circulation and capacity.
- Interior design concept, material and finish specification tuned for commercial durability.
- Programme planning back from the opening date, with the critical path and long-lead items identified.
- Partitions, ceilings, floors and full interior finishing.
- Bespoke commercial joinery — bars, counters, reception desks, banquettes, retail fixtures and shelving.
- Loose furniture packages: made in our workshop or specified and procured to schedule.
- Lighting design for retail display, dining atmosphere or workplace task performance.
- Back of house — kitchens, stores, staff areas and service routes designed to work under pressure.
- Signage, graphics and brand application within the space. [VERIFY] in-house or partner-supplied
- Coordination of mechanical, electrical, data, fire and specialist equipment trades. [VERIFY] division of responsibility per project
- Phased handover so training and stocking can begin before final completion.
We plan backwards from the day you open.
The opening date is the fixed point; everything else is negotiable around it. That means long-lead joinery and furniture are specified and released early, trades are sequenced rather than merely booked, and the client is told immediately — not at the end — if a decision date is about to put the programme at risk.
Delivered fit-out programmes, sector experience and reference clients to be published here once confirmed. [VERIFY]
FixturesDisplay that carries stock
CirculationHow customers moveCommercial detail is measured in footfall.
A domestic finish meets maybe a few hundred hands a year. A retail counter, a bar edge, a reception desk or a door handle in a trading space meets that many in a week — and gets cleaned with something stronger every night.
That is why commercial specification is a different discipline: edges get protected, corners get radiused, finishes get chosen for the cleaning regime, and the maintenance cost of a material is part of the decision rather than a surprise in year two.
Fit-out, stage by stage.
Brief, survey and programme
We start with the lease, the opening date and the trading model, then survey the unit. Constraints — landlord conditions, services capacity, statutory requirements — are established immediately.
Design and specification
Layout against capacity, design concept, durable finish specification, joinery drawings and a furniture schedule, all priced. Long-lead items are flagged now.
Fit-out
Partitions, services coordination, finishes, joinery installation and furniture delivery, run to the programme with weekly reporting against the opening date.
Handover and opening
Snagging, commissioning, furniture placement and staged handover so training, stocking and dry runs can start before completion is signed.
Sectors we build for.
Restaurants, cafés and bars
Covers, atmosphere, service routes and back of house — designed together, because they fail together. Outdoor covers are frequently the cheapest capacity a venue can add.
Retail
Fixtures, display, lighting and circulation built around how customers actually move through a store, and specified to survive footfall and restocking.
Offices and workplaces
Desking, meeting rooms, reception and staff space planned against headcount and working patterns, with acoustics and lighting treated as functional requirements.
What will put your opening date at risk.
In our experience the programme is rarely lost on site. It is lost in the weeks before, on undecided specifications, late landlord approvals, imported items ordered too late, and changes agreed verbally without being priced. We manage all four explicitly — decision deadlines are set at design stage and we will tell you plainly when one is about to cost you a week.
Commercial fit-out questions.
Can you work to a fixed opening date?
We plan backwards from it, publish the critical path, and report against it weekly. What we will not do is agree to a date that the specification and lead times cannot support — we will tell you at design stage what has to change for the date to hold.
Do you handle landlord approvals and statutory permits?
We prepare and coordinate the documentation required and work with the licensed professionals whose sign-off applies. We do not ourselves certify architectural, structural or engineering elements, and any permit that requires a licensed professional is obtained through one. [VERIFY] permit-handling arrangements
Do you fit out commercial kitchens?
We design and build the space, joinery, finishes and service routes, and coordinate specialist catering equipment suppliers and their installation. Catering equipment itself is supplied by specialists. [VERIFY] confirm equipment partners
Can you fit out a space that is still trading?
Sometimes — usually in phases, out of hours, or zone by zone. It costs more and takes longer than a closed-site programme, and we will quantify that difference rather than absorb it silently into the price.
Do you supply the furniture as well?
Yes. Commercial furniture can be made in our workshop or specified and procured to schedule, and for multi-site or multi-floor volumes it is quoted as a contract package. See contract furniture.
What is the first thing you need from us?
The opening date, the lease terms affecting fit-out, the trading model — covers, headcount or fixture count — and access to survey the unit. Those four things determine almost everything else.
When do you need to open?
Give us the date, the unit and the trading model. We will tell you what is achievable in that window, and what would have to change for it to work.
Consultations begin with a site visit and a conversation about how the space needs to work. Scope, drawings and cost follow from that — never before it.