Published: April 25, 2026 · Last reviewed: April 2026 · Reviewed by: Buildup Contracting Pre-Construction Team · Service area: Toronto & GTA
This article is for planning purposes only. Cost, timeline, permit, code, gas, grease trap, public health, and accessibility requirements vary by project scope, municipality, landlord, site condition, engineering, equipment list, and current trade and supplier availability. Confirm specific requirements with the municipality, architect, engineer, landlord, public health unit, fire reviewer, AGCO, registered or certified fuels contractor, electrical contractor, or other applicable authorities.
You signed a lease (or you're about to), and the question on your mind is the same one every operator asks first: how soon can I open? The honest answer has two moving parts. Your architect's permit timeline is one. The construction itself is the other. Construction takes 6–8 weeks for most QSR refreshes, 8–12 weeks for full-service casual, and 10–14 weeks for hotpot, Korean BBQ, or other heavy-ventilation concepts, plus 1–3 weeks of final inspections and a soft open before the doors swing wide. Permits typically run 4–7 weeks across the GTA when your architect submits a clean package, and the pre-construction prep we run in parallel means permit weeks usually don't add to the back end. These are planning ranges that vary by site, municipality, and trade availability — your real schedule comes out of the site walk.
Lease to opening day, that means most full-service restaurants open in 14–18 weeks; QSRs in 10–14; bare-shell or heavy-ventilation builds 18–24. Below is the critical path week-by-week, who owns each step, and where schedules actually slip.
Here's the full path from the day you sign to the day you open. Items on the same line happen in parallel.
| Week | What's happening | Lead role |
|---|---|---|
| Week 0 | Lease review — work-letter, delivery condition, permitted use | Owner + lawyer + Buildup walk |
| Week 1 | Site walk, scope, working budget, contract | Buildup + Owner |
| Weeks 2–3 | Drawings being stamped; equipment list locked; long-lead orders placed | Architect + engineers + Owner |
| Weeks 3–7 | Permit review by city (parallel to construction prep) | Architect submits; municipality reviews |
| Week 7 (target) | Permit in hand; trades mobilize | Buildup |
| Weeks 7–13 / 7–15 / 7–17 | Construction: 6–8 weeks (QSR), 8–12 (full-service), 10–14 (heavy ventilation) | Buildup |
| Final 1–3 weeks | Final inspections, soft open, punchlist, opening | Buildup coordinates; inspectors walk |
If you'd rather see this on a single page with checkboxes, our restaurant build-out checklist is the operator-side companion to this article.
Most schedule slips trace back to decisions made before the lease was even signed. The wrong space, the wrong delivery condition, or a work letter that promises HVAC "to be provided" with no date attached can turn a 14-week project into a 22-week one. A 30-minute site walk catches slab, panel, and ventilation issues that turn into 30-day delays once you're committed. We do that walk for free for operators across the GTA — see our Toronto restaurant construction page for the cities we cover.
This is the question that confuses most first-time operators. A restaurant build-out has at least five different parties making decisions, and the schedule only moves when each one is doing the right thing at the right time. Here's the clean split:
| Phase | Owner | Buildup | Architect / Engineer | Landlord | Municipality / Health / Fire |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lease review (Week 0) | Reviews lease + work-letter | Walks the space, flags constructability | Not engaged yet | Delivers work-letter scope | Not involved |
| Scope + budget (Week 1) | Approves scope | Builds working scope and number | Hired this week | Confirms delivery condition | Not involved |
| Drawings + permit prep (Weeks 2–3) | Locks equipment list and finishes | Pre-construction coordination, long-lead orders | Stamps drawings, submits permit | Approves any structural or storefront items | Not involved |
| Permit review (Weeks 3–7) | Parallel work (see below) | Mobilizes trades, files ESA / TSSA paperwork | Answers reviewer comments | Provides any required landlord letters | Reviews the permit package |
| Demo + rough-in | Stays out of the way | Runs trades, manages sequence | On call for site changes | May supply work (HVAC, sprinkler) | Plumbing + building inspectors walk rough-ins |
| Finishes | Signs off colour and millwork samples | Runs flooring, paint, millwork, equipment set | On call for revisions | May approve storefront and signage | Not on site |
| Final inspections | Available for sign-off | Coordinates inspector schedule | Available for clarifications | Not on site | Building, plumbing, electrical (ESA), gas (TSSA), fire, public health |
| Punchlist + opening | Takes keys, trains staff | Walks punchlist, returns to close items | Done | Done | Done |
The clearest way to think about it: Buildup runs construction. Your architect runs permits. The landlord delivers the box. The city signs off. Each lane has its own clock, and our job is to keep all four clocks aligned with yours.
Permits are the architect's work, not ours. While they prepare and submit drawings, we're running pre-construction prep so we can start construction the day the permit is issued.
Before the lease is signed, we walk the space with you and read the work-letter line by line. The questions on the table: what's the delivery condition (vanilla shell, second-generation, base-building shell)? Is the HVAC unit existing or landlord-supplied? Is the panel size enough for your equipment list? What's the permitted use, and is your concept actually allowed? If you're negotiating the lease itself, our restaurant lease and work-letter guide is worth a read first.
We pull a tape measure and a camera through the unit and put a working scope and budget on the table by end of week. By Friday you should have an honest number, an order of operations, and a contract to sign if we're a fit. The kinds of jobs we walk into are on our project experience page.
Your architect, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer are working through the drawings — floor plan, kitchen layout, hood and fresh-air sizing, electrical load calculation, plumbing layout, accessible washroom layout. The kitchen equipment list gets locked this week. That's the trigger to pre-order anything with a long lead. Our restaurant equipment lead times guide covers what to order when. If your project is heading to Toronto, Mississauga, or Markham, your architect can also book a pre-application meeting with the city's plan reviewer in this window — that single step often saves 1–3 weeks downstream.
The architect's permit drawings are with the city's Building Division. Plumbing, fire-protection, and public health reviewers each get a copy. We don't sit and wait — long-lead equipment is on order, the trades are lined up for the week the permit is expected back, and ESA and TSSA paperwork is filed so electrical and gas inspections can be scheduled the moment rough-in is ready. Permit timing depends on your architect's submission to the city; first review for a clean package typically lands in 4–7 weeks; total permit-in-hand can extend if the city sends comments back and a resubmission is needed. Our GTA permit timeline comparison and complete permit guide walk through the city-by-city differences. The coordination between architect, trades, suppliers, and inspectors through this window is the bulk of our pre-construction and permit coordination work.
Permit issued, kitchen on a truck, trades mobilizing. From here, schedule depends on how disciplined the coordination is.
Old finishes, old equipment, and anything the landlord doesn't want kept gets stripped out. Dust barriers go up between you and the neighbours. If the landlord's removing their own equipment, that has to happen this week or it pushes everything behind it.
Three trades sharing the same ceiling. HVAC ductwork, kitchen exhaust hood, and fresh-air ducting all share that cavity. The electrician runs conduit and pulls service upgrades if the panel needs them. The plumber sets underslab drains, sinks, the grease trap, and washroom rough-ins. The plumbing inspector walks the rough-in to sign off before drywall goes up. If that inspection isn't booked for the right day, framing waits. Coordinating all three trades and the inspectors is the heart of our trade coordination service.
Walls and partitions go in: kitchen line, washroom enclosures, office or storage walls, fire-rated separations between you and the neighbouring tenants. The building inspector does a mid-wall walk before drywall closes the framing in.
Sinks, faucets, toilets, grease trap, and floor drains get connected. Gas piping is pressure-tested, and the gas inspector (TSSA) gets scheduled to certify the turn-on. Your kitchen equipment lands and gets set: hood, range, fryers, walk-in cooler, prep tables, three-compartment sink, handwash sinks. The hood and fresh-air system get balanced — see our piece on Type I vs Type II hoods for what that balancing means.
Flooring, paint, ceiling, millwork (host stand, bar, banquettes, service stations), light fixtures, dining furniture, signage prep. This is the 30% of the schedule that decides how the room actually feels.
A working week of inspections, often staggered across two weeks because each agency has its own calendar:
Once final approvals are issued, we hand you the keys, walk the punchlist, and your team trains. Soft opens to friends and family for two or three nights so the kitchen finds its rhythm. Then you open. We're back the following week to close out the punchlist.
Five things stretch a build-out more than anything else. Each one has a tactic.
Permit resubmissions. Each round of comments adds 2–3 weeks. Fix: a clean first submission with engineer-stamped drawings, the right code references, and the plumbing reviewer's standard questions answered before they're asked.
Long-lead equipment ordered late. Custom hoods, walk-in coolers built to a non-standard size, branded signage, and custom millwork can run 6–12 weeks or more. Fix: pre-order the day the contract is signed and the equipment list is locked, not the day the permit comes back. The equipment lead times guide breaks down the worst offenders.
Equipment list changes after mechanical drawings have started. This one we flag specifically: swapping a four-burner range for a six-burner, adding a charbroiler, or upsizing the walk-in after the engineer has stamped drawings means the drawings come back open, the gas line resizes, the hood resizes, and the permit may need to be revised. Fix: lock the equipment list before the mechanical engineer starts. If it changes, tell us same-day so the impact is priced and scheduled before it's built.
Scope changes mid-project. "Can we add a second bar back here?" is the single biggest cause of slipped opening dates. Fix: we'll give you a clean answer on what a change costs in dollars and days before we touch a tool. The call is yours, with full information.
Landlord-side work behind schedule. HVAC unit replacement, sprinkler relocation, or a service upgrade on the landlord's side has to be on their schedule, not yours. Fix: written start and finish dates from the landlord during lease review.
Inspection scheduling backlogs. In Toronto's busy season, an inspector slot can sit a week before someone walks. Fix: we book inspections as forward-looking placeholders the day the permit is issued and reschedule rather than wait in line.
While your architect's permit is with the city, your time isn't sunk. The operators who open on schedule use these 4–7 weeks for the work that nobody else can do for them:
Q: Can I open in 3 months from lease signing? A: For a QSR refresh in a former food space — sometimes. The math: 4–6 weeks for your architect's permit + 6–8 weeks of construction + 1–2 weeks of inspections fits inside 12–14 weeks if everything stays clean. For a full-service restaurant or anything with a custom hood and millwork, 14–18 weeks is realistic. For hotpot or Korean BBQ with heavy ventilation, plan 16–22 weeks. See our hotpot construction guide for why those concepts run longer.
Q: What can I do during the permitting weeks to save time later? A: Lock your equipment list and place the orders, sign off on the finish package, hire your chef early enough that they're part of the kitchen-layout review, start your hiring and training plan, and submit the sign permit. Permitting is the only stretch where the operator's parallel work matters as much as the contractor's.
Q: How long does the permit itself take across the GTA? A: Restaurant tenant-improvement permits typically issue in 4–7 weeks across most GTA cities when the architect submits a clean package. Resubmissions add 2–3 weeks each. Toronto, Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham, and Richmond Hill each have their own quirks — see the GTA permit timelines comparison for a side-by-side. Permit timing is your architect's lane, not ours; we coordinate around it.
Q: What's the single biggest reason restaurants miss their opening date? A: Long-lead kitchen equipment that wasn't ordered early enough. The hood, the walk-in cooler, and any custom millwork are the items that hold a job hostage if they ship in week 8 instead of week 4. Equipment list changes after the engineer has started drawings is a close second.
Q: Do I need to be on site every day? A: No. We send weekly progress reports with photos and a dated schedule so you know where things stand. You should be on site for the design walk-through, the rough-in walk before drywall, and the pre-opening punchlist — three visits in a typical schedule, not sixty.
Q: What if the landlord's HVAC isn't ready when my construction is? A: That's the conversation we want to have at lease-review, not week 6. If the landlord's scope slips, we keep an alternate sequence ready so we're not paying trades to stand still. More on how we handle this on our project management page.
Q: Can you compress the schedule if I pay for overtime? A: Sometimes. Finishes and millwork respond to overtime; inspections, permits, and equipment lead times don't. We'll tell you honestly which weeks have slack you can buy and which weeks are fixed.
Q: Who books the final inspections — me, my architect, or you? A: We do. We book each inspection as a forward-looking placeholder the day the permit is issued, then confirm or reschedule as the work progresses. You don't need to chase the city. Your architect is on call if a reviewer asks for a drawing clarification. More on how we coordinate inspectors and trades on the FAQ page.
Once you've got a unit in mind, send us the lease draft, your menu, and your concept type. We'll come walk the space and tell you a realistic lease-to-opening schedule for that specific unit — not a generic range. Call 647-477-7999, email info@buildupcontracting.ca, or book a site walk through our contact page. For the cost side of the same project, the Toronto restaurant build-out cost guide is the companion piece to this one.