• Written by: Bernard Toth
• November 8, 2026

Restaurant Build-Out Cost Per Sq Ft in Los Angeles (2026)

Open the city’s permit data and restaurant owners in Los Angeles are telling LADBS that a build-out costs about $64 a square foot. Ask a contractor to price the same space and the answer comes back several times higher. Both numbers are real. They measure different things, and mixing them up is how people sign a lease they can’t finish.

Last verified: November 2026

How much does a restaurant build-out cost per square foot in Los Angeles?

Contractor benchmarks put restaurant build-out on the Pacific Coast at $375 to $650 per square foot in hard costs, while the owner-declared figure on LA permits is about $64. The best public benchmark we’ve found comes from Terrapin Construction Group. The July 2026 figures include the mechanical, electrical and plumbing work, the kitchen and the finishes. They leave out furniture, smallwares and decor, plus soft costs. Soft costs add 15 to 25 percent for design, engineering, permits and inspections, and Terrapin puts California 12 to 18 percent above comparable Western states.

Source: Terrapin Construction Group, High-End Restaurant Construction Cost Per Square Foot (2026 Regional Guide), updated July 2026. Hard costs only; excludes furniture, smallwares, decor and soft costs.

Two cautions. It’s a contractor’s own benchmark, so read it as a planning band and not a quote. And the guide is written for upscale concepts, so a counter-service shop will likely land lower.

What do Los Angeles restaurant permits declare per square foot?

Across restaurant alteration permits issued since 2022, the median declared value is $64 a square foot, and half of them land between $45 and $119. That comes from 2,724 LADBS building permits, every alteration or repair at a restaurant issued since January 2022. Just 249 of them gave both a valuation and a usable square footage, so this is a sample, not the whole market.

Source: LADBS building permits, data.lacity.org, pulled November 2026. Our analysis; see how we got these numbers below.

Tiny spaces pay more per foot. Below 800 square feet the median jumps to $83, and every bigger size sits at $60 to $64. A restroom costs close to the same whether the shop is 600 feet or 3,000, and the small shop spreads it over fewer feet.

Why is the permit number so far below a contractor’s price?

Because the permit number is a declaration, and it covers less. The valuation is whatever the applicant writes on the application. It belongs to the building permit only, so electrical, plumbing and HVAC work, which LADBS handles on separate permits, isn’t in it, and neither are furniture or smallwares.

Our read is that declared valuations are a floor for the permit scope and nothing more. The median declared figure of $64 is about half of Terrapin’s $125 floor for second-generation space. If a landlord, lender or partner quotes you a number near $64, ask what it leaves out.

What would a 1,500 square foot restaurant cost to build out?

Roughly $187,500 to $375,000 in hard costs if the space is second-generation, and $562,500 to $975,000 on Terrapin’s Pacific Coast band. A 1,500 square foot space is close to the middle of our permit sample, where the median change of use is 1,174 square feet and the median remodel is 1,437.

Estimate: 1,500 sq ft multiplied by each per-foot figure, then the low end plus 15 percent and the high end plus 25 percent. These are planning numbers, not quotes. Furniture and smallwares are extra.

Second-generation space or a retail conversion?

Take second-generation restaurant space. In Terrapin’s bands a retail conversion costs more per square foot, even though the permit data can’t show it. The second-generation band tops out at $250 a foot, which is exactly where the cold-shell band starts.

LADBS can’t settle this, because owners converting retail declare a median of $63 and owners remodeling an existing restaurant declare $65. Those two numbers are close because both are estimates written on an application. What differs is everything behind the walls: the hood, the grease interceptor, gas service and restrooms that either already exist or have to be built. See our guide to tenant improvement costs in Los Angeles for how that plays out on other business types.

How long does a restaurant permit take in Los Angeles?

From submittal to issue, the median restaurant alteration permit took 112 days, and half took somewhere between 45 and 209. The sample is the 2,403 permits issued since January 2022 with both dates filled in. The clock includes the weeks a plan sits with you waiting on corrections, so a clean set of drawings should run faster. Our LADBS permit wait time analysis breaks the timing down further.

Budget about four months for the permit alone. If your lease gives you free rent, ask for it to start when the permit issues and not when you sign.

Our call

Lease second-generation space. At the bottom of each band a cold shell costs about $125 a square foot more than second-generation space ($250 against $125), which is roughly $187,500 on 1,500 square feet. That gap is the reason to prefer the space that already had a restaurant in it.

Convert retail only if the landlord’s allowance and free rent cover about that much, around $125 a square foot. Then the conversion costs you nothing extra. Before you sign either lease, have a contractor walk the space and confirm that the hood, the grease interceptor and the restrooms are really there. Once you’re open, our restaurant health violations data shows which equipment and facility problems inspectors cite most, and the restaurant maintenance guide covers keeping the kitchen running.

Pricing a restaurant space? Call 818-835-0556 or send us the floor plan and a few photos of the hood and the back of house, and we’ll tell you whether it’s really second-generation. We’re a licensed general contractor in Los Angeles, and the price starts from your plans, not a per-foot guess. For smaller repairs, see our commercial rates and quotes guide and the commercial handyman services overview. If the job includes the entry, the ADA storefront door requirements are worth a read first.

How we got these numbers

We pulled LADBS building permit records from the City of Los Angeles open data portal in November 2026. The filter was building permits of type alteration or repair whose use description contains “Restaurant”, issued from January 1, 2022. That returned 2,724 permits.

To get a dollar-per-square-foot figure we needed a declared valuation above zero and a square footage. Most alteration permits leave the square footage field empty, so for 190 permits we read the footage from the work description when it stated one, such as “863 SF”. Another 59 used the footage field. We dropped 37 records with a footage under 200 or over 20,000 square feet, or a result under $5 or over $1,000 per square foot, which left 249. One of them was a new building, so it counts in the overall figures but not in the two permit groups.

We labeled a permit as a change of use if its description mentions a change of use or a conversion, or a move from retail, office, market or store. Everything else counts as a remodel or tenant improvement of an existing restaurant. That is keyword matching, so some permits will sit in the wrong group. The permit times use the 2,403 permits with both a submitted and an issued date.

Known limits: valuations are declared by the applicant, the sample is small, and we only counted building permits. The benchmark bands come from one contractor’s published guide, and estimates in this post multiply a per-foot figure by 1,500 square feet.

Restaurant build-out cost FAQ

How much does it cost to build out a restaurant in Los Angeles?

Plan on $375 to $650 per square foot in hard costs, which is Terrapin’s July 2026 band for the Pacific Coast. Then add 15 to 25 percent for design, engineering, permits and inspections, with furniture and smallwares on top of that. Second-generation space, where the hood is already up, can land well below it.

How much do LADBS restaurant permits say a remodel costs per square foot?

The median is $64 per square foot across 249 restaurant alteration permits issued since 2022, and the middle half sit between $45 and $119. Those are numbers the applicant declared for the building permit only. Don’t use them as a budget.

Is converting a retail space into a restaurant more expensive than remodeling a restaurant?

Not on the permits. Change-of-use jobs declare a median of $63 a square foot, and restaurant remodels declare $65. In real money it usually is, since a cold shell has to build the hood, grease interceptor, gas line and restrooms that second-generation space already has.

How long does a restaurant building permit take in Los Angeles?

From submittal to issue, the median restaurant alteration permit took 112 days, and half took somewhere between 45 and 209. That includes the time your plans sit waiting on corrections.

What is not included in a restaurant build-out cost per square foot?

Furniture, smallwares and decor are priced separately, and so are soft costs, which add 15 to 25 percent. The LADBS numbers also leave out electrical, plumbing and HVAC permits, which LADBS handles on their own permits.