Shop, café, restaurant and pharmacy fit-out

How is a shop fit-out different from a flat?

A commercial unit is finished to trade and to be licensed before it is finished to look good, so the decisions start from the use and the authorities, not from the decoration.

• Use and licence: check the requirements for your activity with the district office or the authority that licenses shops before the layout is fixed, and get them in writing. A restaurant or a pharmacy has different requirements from a clothes shop.
• Civil Defence: shops are usually expected to have fire-fighting provision, detection, alarm, emergency lighting and clear escape routes. What your unit needs depends on its use, area, the number of people inside and the building, so settle it with Civil Defence at the start, not after the fit-out.
• The lease and the building: make sure the lease and the building’s or mall’s rules allow your activity, the extraction route, the position of AC outdoor units and the sign.
• Traffic and cleaning: floors, counters and walls take far more footfall, knocks and daily mopping than any flat.
• The rent runs: every day the opening slips has a cost, so the sequence of work is part of the design.

Shopfront and signage

The shopfront is the shop’s permanent advert, but it is also the part most controlled by the mall’s, the building’s or the district’s rules.

• Shopfront glass: 10 to 12 mm toughened, framed or frameless on floor springs, with the direction the door opens checked against the escape requirements.
• Shutters and canopies: a shutter to close the shop at night, and a canopy or pergola to shade the front, to a coastal specification if the shop is near the sea.
• The sign: a mall usually sets the size, material, lighting and installation times of the sign, so ask for its rules before the design. On a street, ask the district office and the building management about the sign before it is made.
• Power for the sign: its own circuit with a timer, and the cable route left in before the shopfront is finished.
• The first metre inside the glass is the first display a passer-by sees, so plan it the way you plan the window.

Floors and surfaces that take the traffic

Choose a shop’s surfaces for footfall, daily cleaning and water first, and for looks second.

Full-body porcelain carries its colour right through the tile, so a chipped edge does not show a different colour, which matters in a shop where trolleys cross the floor every day.

Restaurant and café kitchens: extraction, drainage and grease traps

In a restaurant the kitchen is planned first and the dining room second, because the extraction, gas and drainage decide whether the unit works at all.

• Extraction: a stainless canopy with grease filters, a sealed duct carried up to roof level, and make-up air so the kitchen does not pull air from the dining room. A short duct discharging into a ceiling void or a side wall is what gets units closed after neighbours complain.
• The extraction route is agreed with the landlord and the building management before any equipment is ordered, because it is the item that most often holds up an opening.
• Drainage: a grease trap ahead of the main drain line, floor gullies with falls towards them, and the trap placed where it is easy to open and clean regularly, because congealed fat blocks the line.
• Gas: any connection or change to the gas line is a matter for the gas company, and the cooker positions are fixed before the first fix.
• Cafés: the coffee machine needs water, a drain and its own power at the counter, plus a water filter if the supplier asks for one, and an oven needs an extraction route even when the kitchen is small.

Power, air conditioning and lighting that sells

A shop draws more power than a flat, and draws it all day, and its lighting is a sales tool rather than just light, so both are designed around the equipment list and the product.

• Capacity: add up the fridges, ovens, coffee machine, air conditioning, lighting and sign, and compare the total with the meter’s capacity early, because increasing the supply needs an application to the electricity company and takes time.
• Dedicated circuits for the large equipment, earth-leakage protection, and clean power and data for the till, card machines and screens.
• Air conditioning: a door open all day, crowds, kitchen heat and a glass front in the sun all add to the load. Concealed ducted units suit a suspended ceiling and splits are simpler; both need a drain to a real outlet and a permitted place for the outdoor units.
• Lighting: spots and track on the product and the counter, warm light in seating areas, calm, low-glare light in a pharmacy, and one colour temperature throughout the shop.
• Clothes shops: LED fittings with a high colour-rendering index so fabric shows its true colour, and light from the front in fitting rooms, not only from overhead.

Pharmacies and clothes shops: the particular details

A pharmacy or clothes shop fit-out revolves around storage and display, and each has its own details.

• Pharmacy: shelving behind the dispensing counter with depths and spacings that suit the packs, drawers for small items, and a dispensing counter worked standing up, with room for the computer and the till.
• Medicine storage: away from direct sun, heat and damp, with the medicine fridge on its own circuit. Check the current storage and licensing requirements with the relevant authority and your syndicate before the layout is fixed.
• Pharmacy surfaces: washable finishes and a floor with few joints.
• Clothes shop: wall display systems whose heights change with the seasons, room to move between the rails, mirrors, and fitting rooms with a solid door or a well-closing curtain, a hook and a seat.
• The stockroom: not carved out of the shop at the last minute, but planned from the start with shelving and a delivery route.

Opening on time: what the quotation should list

The shortest route to opening on time is to fix the design and the equipment list before work starts, and to order the long-lead items first: the extraction route and its approval, the stone counter template, imported equipment and the sign permit. In malls that do not allow work during trading hours, we work at night with floor protection and dust and noise control, and hand the space back clean each morning. In the quotation, each of these is its own item:

• The layout, the stockroom and the toilets.
• The shopfront: glass type and thickness, the door, the shutter and the canopy.
• Floors, walls and ceilings: the material, size and specification for each area.
• Counters and joinery: material, thickness and dimensions.
• The kitchen: the canopy, the duct and its route to the roof, make-up air, the grease trap and the gullies.
• Electrics: the board and dedicated circuits, each type of lighting, and power for the sign.
• Air conditioning: type, capacity, unit positions and drain lines.
• Civil Defence works to the written requirements for your unit.
• What is not included: equipment, appliances, loose furniture and licences, so there are no surprises.

Our finishing quotation guide explains how to read any quote line by line.

Itmam and shop and café fit-outs

Itmam has finished clinics and offices, and shops, cafés, restaurants and pharmacies are part of our work: shopfronts and glazing, ceilings, electrics, air conditioning, floors, counters and Civil Defence works. Counters, cabinets, doors, stone tops and metalwork are made in our own workshops and installed by the same team.

We visit, measure, and go through your activity, equipment list and written requirements with you, then give you a written, itemised quotation before work starts. On a finishing contract you pay each supplier directly at their price, and the tax invoice is in your name; our management fee for supervision and execution is agreed in writing before we begin, and we add nothing to the price of materials. Supply-only is available.

We are based in Alexandria: head office in El Ibrahimya, marble and granite showroom in El Deresa, Moharram Bey. We work in Alexandria, on the North Coast and in New Cairo, and elsewhere in Egypt when the job suits us. Itmam was founded in 2016, with 20+ years in the trade. Phone and WhatsApp +20 106 926 2572, Saturday to Thursday, 09:00 to 18:00.