How to start a restaurant or café in Europe

Opening a restaurant or café is one of the most rewarding — and most operationally demanding — small businesses you can start. The food is the fun part; the licences, hygiene rules, staffing, and bookings are where most owners get caught out. This guide walks through the practical steps of opening a food business anywhere in Europe, and where the digital side quietly decides whether you fill tables or not.

If you are still deciding on your business model more broadly, it is worth reading our pillar guide on how to start an online business in Europe first — much of the company setup, VAT and admin advice there applies to a physical venue too.

1. Nail the concept before the lease

Before you look at premises, be brutally specific about what you are: a 20-cover neighbourhood café, a 60-cover casual diner, a specialty coffee kiosk, a wine bar with small plates. The concept drives everything downstream — kitchen size, staff count, licences, and average spend per head.

Write a one-page plan that answers three questions: who is the customer, what will they spend, and how many of them do you need per day to break even. If you cannot make the maths work on paper with conservative numbers, it will not work with real rent and real wages.

2. Location and premises

Location is the single biggest fixed bet you will make. Prioritise footfall that matches your concept (a lunch café near offices, an evening bistro near homes), delivery access for stock, and the physical layout — extraction, drainage, and power for kitchen equipment are expensive to add later.

Two things to check before you sign anything:

• Change of use / planning permission. Many premises are not automatically licensed for food service or for hot-food extraction. Confirm the property has, or can get, the correct use classification with the local authority.
• Fit-out cost. A shell unit can cost as much to equip as a year's rent. Get a builder and a kitchen supplier to quote before you commit.

3. Licences and food-safety registration

This is the part that varies most by country, so treat the following as the shape of what you need rather than a single checklist.

Food business registration is universal. Under EU Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs, every food business operator must register their establishment with the competent authority before trading, keep that information up to date, and — for some activities — obtain approval after an on-site inspection. Registration itself is usually straightforward and often free; the inspection standards are where the work lies. (Sources: European Commission — Food hygiene legislation; Regulation (EC) 852/2004, EUR-Lex.)

A HACCP-based food-safety system is required. The same regulation obliges operators to put in place and maintain permanent procedures based on HACCP principles (identifying hazards, controlling them, and keeping records). Importantly, there is built-in flexibility for small, low-risk businesses, which can often rely on good-practice guides rather than a full bespoke system — but you still need documented procedures and temperature records.

Allergen information is mandatory. Since Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 came into application on 13 December 2014, you must be able to tell customers which of the 14 named allergens are in each dish, even for food that is not pre-packed. You can provide this verbally as long as a written record is available on request. (Source: European Commission — Food information to consumers.)

Alcohol and extras are separate, national licences. This is where countries diverge sharply. A few examples:

• Germany: serving alcohol requires a restaurant licence (Gaststättenkonzession) on top of the general business registration (Gewerbeanmeldung).
• France: you typically need a licence to serve alcohol, a health inspection, a fire-safety inspection, and — if you play music — a SACEM licence for the rights.
• Netherlands: you register with the Chamber of Commerce (KvK), draw up a HACCP plan, apply for a catering permit from the municipality, and hold a separate licence under the licensing and catering act to serve alcohol.
• Finland: premises must be approved by the municipal building and food inspectorate, with a HACCP system and, if relevant, an alcohol permit.

The pattern is consistent: one national/commercial registration, one food-safety registration, and then bolt-on permits for alcohol, outdoor seating, and music. Budget several weeks for approvals and confirm the exact list with your local authority — this is not something to guess at. (Source: Horeca Webzine — Starting a restaurant in the 27 EU countries.)

4. Staffing

Hospitality lives or dies on its team. Plan for:

• Food-hygiene training for anyone handling food — most countries require it and inspectors will ask.
• Contracts and payroll set up correctly from day one, including any local rules on tips, overtime, and part-time hours.
• Scheduling that flexes with your covers. Over-staffing kills margin; under-staffing kills reviews.

Because rotas, payroll, and stock ordering eat hours every week, this is the first place to think about automation. Before you hire an extra admin person, it is worth running the numbers on what automating the repetitive back-office work would save — our automation ROI calculator gives you a quick estimate.

5. The digital side — where covers are actually won

Here is the uncomfortable truth: most people decide where to eat on their phone before they ever walk past your door. Your digital presence is not marketing decoration — it is the front door.

A proper website. Not just a social page. You want your menu, opening hours, location, and a booking or ordering path on a fast, mobile-first site you control. Search engines and map listings pull from it, and a slow or missing website sends diners to the competitor who has one.

Online bookings and ordering. Every reservation a customer can make themselves at 11pm is one your staff did not have to take by phone at lunch service. The same applies to click-and-collect or delivery ordering. These systems also capture customer data you can use later for email offers and repeat visits.

Reviews and listings. Claim and maintain your Google Business Profile and the main review platforms. Respond to reviews — publicly and quickly. For a food business, a steady flow of recent, well-answered reviews is worth more than almost any paid advert.

Much of this can be automated: booking confirmations, review requests after a visit, and reminders that cut no-shows. The goal is a system that fills tables and follows up with guests while you run the pass.

6. A quick word on other service businesses

If you are weighing up a food venue against another owner-operated business, the fundamentals — licences, local premises, bookings, reviews — repeat across sectors. Our guide on starting a salon or barbershop covers the same ground from the beauty side, and the booking-and-reviews playbook is nearly identical.

Getting the digital foundation right

Concept, location, and compliance get you open. Bookings, ordering, and reviews keep you full. The venues that thrive treat their website and automation as core infrastructure, not an afterthought — a fast site that takes reservations, confirms them automatically, and brings guests back.

That is exactly what we build. Take a look at how we approach web development for hospitality businesses, or book a free consultation and we will map out the booking, ordering, and automation setup for your specific concept.