An Excel workbook for retail stores, cafes, QSRs and restaurants: a blank BOQ with shopfront, interior, services and back-of-house lines, plus the boundary lines that decide what a number covers — kitchen equipment, POS, power backup, mall deposits and approvals. A worked cafe sample, a fifteen-point specification reference and a checklist. Free, usable with any firm, and the download link asks for nothing.
The same eleven columns as the whole-home BOQ pack and the other trade sheets, with the area column used for shopfront, interior, services, back of house and boundary.
Carpet area or built-up area, which of the shopfront, HVAC, electrical, exhaust and grease management the number covers, and why the boundary items get their own lines.
Eighteen lines: shopfront and signage; partitions, ceilings, flooring, counters, display joinery and seating; electrical, lighting, HVAC and fire; kitchen exhaust, drainage and grease, and the civil and services to receive kitchen equipment; then the boundary items, site working and handover.
A carpet-area cafe with a service counter, 30 covers and a back-of-house kitchen, handed over as a bare shell. An illustrative outlet, not a client's project; the point is the wording of each line.
What each line must name, the vague wording it replaces, and the failure that vagueness causes — from the area basis and scope boundary to the shopfront, signage, counters, fire, kitchen exhaust, grease and drainage, and approvals.
Questions grouped by when to ask them: before signing, at design, on site, at handover, and about money. Printable, with tick boxes.
A retail or restaurant fit-out is quoted per square foot, and that single number hides most of what decides the final invoice. Five things account for most of the gap between two quotes, and the template has a line or a column for each.
The area the rate is applied to. The same rate on carpet area and on built-up area are different prices. Two contractors quoting the same per-square-foot figure on the same unit can invoice very differently for that reason alone.
The services, by format. A shop is largely joinery, flooring, lighting and a shopfront. A restaurant of the same footprint adds kitchen exhaust and fresh air, grease management, drainage falls, a higher electrical load and often power backup. The template lists each service separately, so a quote that left them out shows a gap rather than a lower total.
The boundary items. Kitchen equipment, POS hardware, power backup, mall deposits and charges, and statutory fees are routinely excluded. Each has a line to be marked included or excluded, because the cheaper of two quotes is often the one that excluded more.
Fire and drainage, in sequence. Sprinkler and detector layouts are designed against the final ceiling, and drainage problems are often found only after demolition. The template ties the ceiling line to the fire layout and asks for drainage to be checked straight after demolition.
The mall's rules. A mall unit adds a fit-out manual, approval drawings, hoarding to the mall's specification, restricted or night-shift working, and tie-ins to the mall's exhaust riser and grease trap. Mall store fit-outs covers the approval path in detail.
| Element | What the line must name | The vague version to refuse |
|---|---|---|
| Measurement basis | Carpet or built-up area, used for every quote | Basis unstated |
| Scope boundary | Shopfront, HVAC, electrical, exhaust, grease — each in or out | "Complete fit-out" |
| Kitchen exhaust | Hood, duct material and gauge, route, discharge, make-up air | "Exhaust ducting" |
| Grease and drainage | Pipe material, falls, grease trap type and capacity | "Plumbing work" |
| Fire | What is relocated or added, who designs, who obtains the NOC | "Fire as per norms" |
| Boundary items | Kitchen equipment, POS, power backup, deposits, fees — each in or out | Not mentioned |
The full sheet carries fifteen elements, including shopfront, signage, counters, display joinery, flooring, ceilings, electrical, HVAC, and approvals with GST.
A direct link. No form, no email, no phone number — a download is not an enquiry, and nobody will call you for taking the file.
Fitting out an office rather than an outlet? The office fit-out BOQ uses the same columns, organised by builder's work, MEP, HVAC and furniture.
Bring every quote to one area. Ask each contractor whether the rate is on carpet or built-up area, and convert before comparing anything.
Copy each quote into the format. A line a firm cannot fill in — the duct gauge, the grease trap capacity, who obtains the fire NOC — is not a detail they forgot. It is a decision left open, and on an outlet with a fixed opening date it closes at the worst possible time.
Mark the boundary items. For each quote, write included or excluded against kitchen equipment, POS, power backup, deposits and fees, then add the exclusions back to the cheaper quote before calling it cheaper.
For what an outlet costs once it is specified, see retail fit-out cost per sq ft by format, with its exclusions table and a real six-week restaurant programme. For delivered work, retail and F&B fit-outs shows completed brand outlets.
Either, and the BOQ has to say which. The same per-square-foot rate applied to built-up area is a higher price than on carpet area, so two quotes at an identical rate can invoice differently. Write the basis at the top of the sheet and bring every quote to it before comparing.
Kitchen equipment, POS hardware, power backup, statutory NOC fees, mall fit-out deposits and charges, HVAC beyond the landlord's provision to the unit, grease trap or drainage modification, and reinstatement at lease end are common exclusions. None of these are dishonest to exclude; the problem is leaving them unstated. The template gives each one a line to mark included or excluded.
Because format drives the services far more than the finishes. A shop is largely joinery, flooring, lighting and a shopfront. A restaurant of the same footprint adds kitchen exhaust and fresh-air ducting, grease management, drainage falls, a higher electrical load and often power backup — services that can be a large share of the total on their own.
Yes. Mall units add the fit-out manual, approval drawings, hoarding to the mall's specification, restricted or night-shift working, tie-ins to the mall's exhaust riser and grease trap, and fit-out deposits. The template has lines for each, and the checklist starts with reading the fit-out manual.
So the sheet can compare two or three contractors against one fixed specification without our numbers anchoring it. The retail and F&B band is published on the site by format, with its basis, exclusions and date attached, which a spreadsheet passed around on its own cannot carry.
No. The download link on this page is direct and asks for nothing. A download is not treated as an enquiry, and nobody will call you for taking the file.