How many m² should a restaurant kitchen be?
Square-meter calculation for a restaurant kitchen by cover count and menu type, equipment planning matrix and common mistakes.
General rule
For professional restaurant kitchens, the baseline: kitchen area equals 25-40% of dining area. A 100-cover restaurant (about 200 m² dining) needs 50-80 m² kitchen.
By menu complexity
- Fast casual / cafe: 0.4 m² / cover
- À la carte restaurant: 0.6 m² / cover
- Fine dining: 0.8-1.0 m² / cover
- Banquet / catering: 1.2 m² / cover
Zone allocation
The kitchen footprint should distribute roughly as:
- Prep (mise en place): 30%
- Cook line: 25%
- Cooling / storage: 20%
- Service pass: 10%
- Dishwashing: 15%
Common mistakes
Calculating kitchen area from equipment catalogs is wrong. Walking lanes for service staff, distance between prep counters and ventilation clearances must be planned first.
Another common mistake: planning dishwashing last. Dishwash becomes the bottleneck at peak service and blocks the entire kitchen flow.
The Caccia Pro approach
Before any equipment is chosen, we do a site survey. m² calculation, flow simulation and equipment proposal land within 48 hours.