The restaurant opening timeline, step by step

Q: When do restaurants buy a POS, insurance, or payroll?

POS lands around the trade-permit stage, 4–8 weeks out. Insurance is forced earlier — at lease signing and again at the liquor application. Payroll and workers' comp come at hiring, just before opening.

A restaurant doesn't open all at once. It moves through a known sequence of public milestones, each one a different deadline for the owner — and a different selling window for a different vendor. Here's the full map, in order, and what each step means for you.

Formation and EIN: the banking window

The business is born on paper and gets a tax ID. The first real task is a bank account. This is the moment for business banking and, downstream, lending. There's no location yet, so it's early for everyone else.

Lease signed: the insurance window opens

The landlord won't hand over keys without a certificate of insurance. So the day a lease is signed, the owner needs general-liability coverage. It's a hard, landlord-forced deadline, and the first strong insurance window.

Buildout and trade permits: the POS window

Construction starts. Electrical, mechanical, and hood permits get pulled. Now there's a credible open date, which makes this the window for point-of-sale and payments. The hardware has to be installed and tested before the soft open.

Liquor-license application: the liquor-liability window

Filed roughly 90 days before opening. To get the license issued in Washington, the owner generally has to show liquor-liability coverage before it's granted. That's a second, regulator-forced insurance deadline on top of the landlord's, and the application date tells you it's coming.

Food inspection: the POS window is closing

A pre-opening health inspection means the doors are days or weeks away. If you sell payments and you're just now making contact, the owner has almost certainly already chosen. The window is closing.

Business-license open date and certificate of occupancy

The official records that the restaurant is operating. By now the early vendors are locked in. The remaining windows are the ones tied to hiring.

Hiring: the payroll and workers' comp window

When the restaurant staffs up, it needs workers' compensation before the first employee starts, plus payroll setup. A solo owner with no employees isn't required to carry it yet, so this window opens once they actually hire. It's the last major window, and it reopens the door for a different set of reps.

The pattern worth seeing: one restaurant is not one lead. It's a sequence of selling windows — banking, insurance, POS, liquor liability, payroll — each opening for a different rep at a different milestone. A vendor who only sees the formation filing sees one moment. A vendor who sees the whole timeline sees five.

Common questions

How long does it take to open a restaurant? From forming the business to opening the doors usually runs several months — often 6 to 12 — depending on the buildout, permitting, and whether a liquor license is involved.

What permits does a restaurant need to open? Typically a building permit for the buildout, trade permits (electrical, mechanical, hood), a food/health permit, a business license, and — if serving alcohol — a liquor license. A certificate of occupancy comes at the end.

When do restaurants buy a POS, insurance, or payroll? POS lands around the trade-permit stage, four to eight weeks out. Insurance is forced earlier — at lease signing and again at the liquor application. Payroll and workers' comp come at hiring, just before opening.

The takeaway

Read the timeline as a calendar, not a checklist. Each milestone is a dated deadline the owner can't move and a window only one vendor gets to walk through first. Catch a restaurant at the milestone where your window opens — not after it's closed — and you're solving a problem the owner already knows they have.