MorningSheetWhen to call a new restaurant about food distribution: the Washington timeline
Washington restaurants open distributor accounts once the kitchen is finished: about two months before opening.
Median Middle half of openings Distributor decision window
* fewer than 30 openings; treat as a rough guide.
When the decision happens
The owner needs an account, approved credit and a delivery day before training and soft-open service. A finaled building permit or a business license filed ahead of opening means that moment is close.
Call before the menu tasting and you are on the first order guide.
What the owner is dealing with
Credit with no history
A new restaurant has no trade references. The rep who gets credit approved fast wins the account.
Minimums and delivery days
A small kitchen with little storage needs low minimums and the right delivery days.
A menu still moving
The menu changes through training and the first weeks open. A rep who helps cost it out becomes the one they call.
Questions reps ask
When does a new restaurant pick a food distributor? Once the kitchen is finished. In Washington the building permit is finaled about two months before opening.
Is a liquor license application a useful signal for a distributor? Yes. It goes in about two months before opening, so the first order is close.
Can I reach them after they open? Yes, but then you are replacing a distributor who already has the order guide and the delivery day.
How we measured this
Measured from 402 Washington restaurant openings, January 2024 to October 2026 (339 King, 42 Pierce, 21 Snohomish): every restaurant in King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties whose city business license gave an open date in that range. Opening day is the open date on the license. For each step we took the first matching public record on the same business in the two years before opening (for the first inspection, the 180 days after) and counted the days between.
A step counts only when the record is tied to the business itself. Permits filed under a bare address are left out, because a hand check found earlier tenants' permits among them. That leaves the permit steps with 4 to 20 openings each, so they carry an asterisk. Three steps only see records since we started reading them (dates below), so their numbers are bounded: the business license can show at most a few months of lead, and the first inspection leaves out recent openings not yet inspected. Measured October 4, 2026. We re-measure as more permits are tied to their businesses.
| Step | Openings | Share of 402 | Middle half (days) | Median (days) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building permit filed* | 20 | 5.0% | 345 to 81 | 164 |
| Building permit issued* | 14 | 3.5% | 284 to 108 | 142 |
| Liquor license application* | 8 | 2.0% | 75 to 34 | 55 |
| Building permit finaled* | 4 | 1.0% | 56 to 39 | 49 |
| Health plan review filed* | 2 | 0.5% | 50 to 33 | 41 |
| Business license filed | 65 | 16.2% | 32 to 4 | 9 |
| First health inspection | 60 | 14.9% | 43 after to 107 after | 76 after |
- Building permit filed. Building, alteration or trade permit application at the city or county (Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Bellevue, Kirkland, Burien, Pierce County and others).
- Building permit issued. The same permits on the day the city issued them.
- Liquor license application. Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board new-license application notices. We have these from March 2026, so this step only sees recent openings.
- Building permit finaled. The building permit marked final or complete by the city.
- Health plan review filed. Snohomish County Health Department food plan review, the one county whose plan review dates we read today.
- Business license filed. A city business license filed ahead of its stated open date, dated the day it first appeared in the city record. Seen from June 2026.
- First health inspection. The first King County routine food inspection on or after opening day. Inspection records start in December 2025.