It’s safe to say that more or less everyone, at one point in their life, daydreams about opening a restaurant of their own. Some of us are bold enough to do it, but not everyone can succeed in the tricky world of the restauranteur.
If you’re reading this, though, let’s assume you have a great idea and the will to succeed. Still, you have one important question on your mind—how much does it cost to open a restaurant in Dubai, anyways?
Not all restaurants are created equal, so let’s break this down by type.
1. The full-service restaurant
The most popular type of restaurant, this offers full-service dining and delivery. Because of this, it costs the most to start and keep running.
According to consultancy Restaurant Secrets, the average rents for a prime location from Downtown Dubai to Jumeirah can cost anywhere are currently between $70 to $275 per square foot. An average restaurants needs on average 1,500 to 5,000 sq ft, so the annual leases of such units could be anywhere between $70,000 to more than $1,000,000.
To design and built your restaurant, it will cost around $150 to $600 per square foot, but bigger units will usually have a higher operating cost because of the labour, maintenance, utilities, and seats needed to make rent.
How big should you go? It’s a trade off. While it will cost more in overhead, you can also include more seats. Running a restaurant is all about average spend per person versus how many people are served per day, but the greater you have to spend per day to keep it, the more people you’ll need to break even.
Average spend to start up in a prime location in Dubai is usually around $500,000 and above, all included.
2. The dark kitchen/delivery restaurant
The dark kitchen is growing in popularity, and with good reason. Delivery is booming and dark kitchens are much more affordable, as often you’ll only need a kitchen of about 19 to 21 square metres to get going, according to Restaurant Secrets.
Renting a space with no equipment will set you back about $2,000 to $2,200 per month, while with kitchen equipment costs start at $4,700 onwards, depending on who you rent from and where you rent.
Keep in mind though, you’ll need to be placed in a radius so you can maximize deliveries nearby, so it may not benefit you to be too far from the action.
If you’d rather buy the equipment, it will set you back between $30,000 and $100,000, depending on what is required. You also won’t have to pay service staff, and can theoretically run multiple brand concepts out of the same kitchen.
Starting up an affordable dark kitchen will start at around $100,000.
3. the hole-in-the-wall restaurant
The pandemic-era has caused these to thrive, and with good reason. They’re affordable, and if you have the right concept you can thrive on word of mouth and intrigue, turning your simplicity of quirkiness into a positive.
You’ll need to keep things small and focused, but if you can do it right, the sky is the limit.
To pull it off, , according to Restaurant Secrets, you’ll need as low as $30 per square foot, with added costs for staffing and interior design. You’ll likely need to be in a viable residential or commercial area, and delivery is a must, too. If you build the brand right, however, both expansion and franchising are a good possibility.
If you have the right location, product, packaging, online presence, brand building, and can get a great staff, starting this up costs on average $250,000.
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