Guides
Opening a Restaurant in Australia: The Complete Checklist
5 March 2026 · RestoMate Team
Licences, layout, tech stack and launch — a step-by-step checklist for opening a venue in Sydney's fastest-growing region.
Paperwork first
Register the business and ABN, secure food business registration with your council, complete a Food Safety Supervisor certification, sort liquor licensing if pouring, and lock in insurance (public liability, workers comp). Local councils each have their own timelines — start these before signing the lease if you can.
Design for flow
Whatever the cuisine, the winning floor plans share traits: a short path from pass to tables, POS points where queues won't block doors, and power/data run to every future terminal, printer and screen location *before* the walls close. Retrofitting cabling after fit-out costs multiples.
Choose the tech stack once
Opening is the cheapest moment to get POS, kitchen screens, ordering and loyalty right — migrations later are painful. Prioritise: cloud-based (no server room), all-in-one (fewer vendors pointing fingers), commission-free ordering (protect margins from day one), and local support (opening week *will* have questions).
Launch with a database
Start collecting customers before the doors open: a simple landing page with a launch-offer signup, QR codes in the hoarding, soft-launch invites for locals. Venues that open with 300 locals on the list start month one with momentum. RestoMate venues get their website, loyalty and campaigns live before opening day — it's part of the standard setup.
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