Most kitchen budgets fail in the same place: the line items that didn’t make it onto the spreadsheet. Here’s a category-by-category guide to what every part of a commercial kitchen actually costs in 2026 — from your $50,000 hood system down to the smallwares and disposables that quietly add up.
Why most commercial kitchen budgets miss
The standard story we hear from operators goes something like this. They got three quotes for their kitchen build — somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000. The quotes are wildly different. The line items don’t match up. Nobody can really explain why one is so much higher than another. The operator picks a number that feels reasonable, signs the lease, and then spends the next six months discovering everything that wasn’t in the quote.
It’s not malicious. Different dealers quote different scopes. Some include freight; some don’t. Some include the MEP rough-ins; some assume your GC handles that. Some include smallwares; almost none do. And nobody includes the things you don’t know to ask about — the floor drain rough-in that costs $300 during construction and $3,000 in a year, the dedicated electrical circuit for a piece of equipment you haven’t picked yet, the contingency line that experienced operators build in and rookies don’t.
This guide walks through the actual line items you need to budget for, in roughly the order they show up on a real project. The dollar figures are 2026 ranges for a typical full-service restaurant in a 1,500–2,000 square foot kitchen. Your specific project will land somewhere in or near these ranges; the point isn’t to commit you to a number, it’s to make sure nothing is missing from your spreadsheet.
The big-ticket items: where most of the budget lives
Three categories usually account for 50–70% of a commercial kitchen budget: hood systems, walk-in refrigeration, and cooking equipment. Get the planning right on these three and the rest of the budget gets a lot easier to control.
Hood system: ~$5,000 per linear foot, fully installed
A complete hood system includes the hood itself, the makeup air unit, fire suppression, exhaust fans, grease duct, and supply duct. Rule-of-thumb pricing in 2026 is roughly $5,000 per linear foot installed. A 10-foot hood lands around $50,000; a 20-foot hood lands around $100,000.
Budget reality: This is one place not to under-size. Modifying a hood later — adding length, converting to solid fuel, upgrading the makeup air unit — runs into the tens of thousands and sometimes into six figures. Size for the menu you’ll cook in five years, not just on opening day.
Walk-in refrigeration: $200–$350 per square foot, fully installed
Standard installed pricing in 2026. A typical 8×8 walk-in lands somewhere between $12,000 and $16,000. Scale up or down from there based on footprint. Higher-end pricing reflects diamond plate floors, more complex placement, or larger configurations.
Budget reality: As of January 1, 2026, all new commercial refrigeration must use A2L-compliant refrigerant (typically R-454B). Confirm compliance in writing before purchase. We’ve seen non-compliant installs forced to be ripped out and replaced — a six-figure correction.
Cooking equipment: highly variable by concept
The cook line — ranges, fryers, ovens, griddles, broilers, char-grills — is where concept drives cost more than anywhere else. A six-burner range runs $1,800–$10,000+ depending on tier. A commercial combi oven runs $8,000–$30,000+. A high-volume fryer with built-in oil filtration runs $3,000–$10,000+. For a typical full-service concept, the cook line itself usually lands between $40,000 and $120,000.
Budget reality: The tier you pick on each piece has long-term consequences (lifespan, energy, repairs). Spend the time to differentiate which pieces are mission-critical to your concept versus which can be value-engineered safely.
The mid-ticket items: warewashing, refrigeration, prep
The next tier of spend covers categories that aren’t as headline-grabbing as the hood and walk-in but still represent real budget — and several of them have hidden complexity that catches operators off guard.
- Warewashing (dish machine): $8,000–$60,000. A door-type machine sits at the low end; a conveyor or flight-type machine runs significantly higher. Size based on peak rack volume, not budget. Ventless high-temp machines cost more up front but eliminate the condensate hood and its ventilation infrastructure.
- Reach-in refrigeration and freezers: $1,500–$8,000 per unit. Most kitchens need 3–6 units. A two-door reach-in runs roughly $1,800–$6,200 depending on tier; a three-door unit scales up from there.
- Prep tables and worktables: $400–$3,500 per unit. Standard stainless prep tables are inexpensive; refrigerated prep tables (sandwich/pizza prep, salad stations) cost considerably more. Budget for 3–6 prep stations in a typical kitchen.
- Ice machines: $3,000–$10,000. Size to peak demand, not average. An undersized ice machine becomes an operational headache fast.
- Serving line equipment: $5,000–$30,000+. Hot wells, cold wells, steam tables, expo counters, heat lamps. Highly dependent on whether your concept is full-service plate-up or quick-service serving line.
The MEP line items most operators forget
MEPs — mechanical, electrical, and plumbing — are the things that make your equipment actually work. They’re also where budgets quietly hemorrhage when nobody plans for them up front.
- Electrical phase mismatch. A customer brings in three-phase equipment when the building only has single-phase service. The equipment either can’t be powered or requires expensive conversion. Always confirm what voltage and phase the building has before specifying equipment.
- Floor drains and floor sinks not roughed in. During construction these cost a few hundred dollars per location. After the floor is poured, the only way to add one is to jackhammer the floor and likely close temporarily. Plan for every drain you might need — including for equipment you don’t have day one but might add later.
- Gas line capacity. An undersized gas line can’t support the full cook line at peak. Confirm BTU loads and line sizing before equipment goes in.
- Dedicated electrical circuits. Most major equipment needs its own dedicated circuit. Skipping or undersizing these creates ongoing operational problems and code violations.
For most projects, budget a separate MEP line item of 10–20% of equipment cost for rough-ins, connections, and final hookups. This is often handled by the general contractor and pulled into the construction budget rather than the equipment budget — but it has to land somewhere, and the worst outcome is when nobody’s tracking it.
Smallwares: the budget category nobody plans for
Smallwares is the industry term for everything that isn’t a major piece of equipment but is essential to actually running the kitchen. Sheet pans, mixing bowls, hotel pans, food storage containers, utensils, dish racks, cleaning tools, knives, scales, can openers, thermometers, and yes — to-go containers and disposables.
Each item is small. The total isn’t. For a typical full-service kitchen build, smallwares run roughly 8–15% of your equipment budget. On a $250,000 equipment build, that’s $20,000–$37,500 in items that almost nobody thinks to budget for.
A rough working breakdown of what’s typically included:
- Cookware: Stock pots, sauce pans, sauté pans, sheet pans, hotel pans in various sizes. Most kitchens need 4–6 of each common size.
- Prep and service tools: Knives, cutting boards, scales, thermometers, measuring cups, ladles, tongs, spatulas. Multiples of each so they can be in service while others are being cleaned.
- Storage: Food storage containers (Cambros), lids, labels, racks. A kitchen runs through these constantly.
- Dishroom supplies: Dish racks (glass, cup, plate, flatware), bus tubs, chemical dispensers.
- Tabletop and service: Plateware, glassware, flatware, serving pieces. Often budgeted separately as “front of house,” but worth flagging because it’s another category that quietly costs $10,000+ on a typical opening.
- To-go containers and disposables: Clamshells, takeout bags, paper goods, cleaning supplies. Often opens as a $2,000–$5,000 starter inventory, then recurs monthly as an operating expense.
A practical move: at the design stage, ask your dealer for a smallwares package built around your specific menu and volume. It’s not a glamorous line item, but having it pre-spec’d and pre-priced means you’re not standing in the kitchen the week before opening realizing you need to order $20,000 of stuff you didn’t budget for.
The line items beyond equipment
Even after equipment and smallwares are accounted for, there are several budget categories most first-time operators don’t think about until the invoices show up.
- Freight and delivery: 3–8% of equipment cost. Some manufacturers include freight; many don’t. Walk-ins and hoods often have separate freight lines that aren’t trivial.
- Permits and inspections: $1,000–$10,000+. Varies enormously by jurisdiction. Plan-review fees, building permits, health department, mechanical, electrical, plumbing inspections all carry their own costs and timelines.
- Installation labor: variable. Some equipment is delivered and dropped; some requires specialized installation. Walk-ins and hoods always require installation labor. Many dealers include this in the quoted price, but confirm explicitly — assumption is where budgets break.
- Opening inventory: 5–10% of opening budget. The food in your walk-ins and dry storage on day one. Usually overlooked entirely until two weeks before opening.
- Training and start-up labor: variable. Equipment training, staff hiring and onboarding, opening week labor before revenue stabilizes.
- Contingency: 10–15% of total project cost. The single most important line item on any commercial kitchen budget. Projects that include contingency come in on budget. Projects that don’t come in well over.
Putting it together: a sample 2026 budget
Here’s roughly how the numbers break down for a typical mid-tier 1,500–2,000 square foot full-service restaurant kitchen build in 2026. Treat this as a starting reference, not a quote — your specific project will land in different places based on concept, menu, and space.
*MEP rough-ins and connections are often handled within the general contractor’s scope rather than the equipment budget. Whether they appear on the kitchen budget or the construction budget, the work has to land somewhere — and the worst outcome is when nobody is tracking it. Figures throughout this table are illustrative 2026 ranges. Actual project costs vary significantly by concept, location, and tier.
A few honest notes on this table. Some line items overlap — a higher-tier hood might consume budget that would otherwise go to cook line equipment. Some are conditional — if you’re not doing to-go and delivery, your disposables line is much smaller. And the percentages add up to more than 100% on purpose, because they’re ranges, not exact splits.
The point of the table isn’t a fill-in-the-blank budget. It’s a checklist. If your budget is missing any of these line items entirely, that’s the warning sign worth catching now rather than three weeks before opening.
A few hard-won principles for budgeting commercial kitchens
After almost three decades of designing kitchens, here’s what we’ve watched separate the budgets that work from the budgets that don’t:
- Tell your dealer your real budget. The single most common mistake is withholding the number for fear it’ll all get spent. The opposite happens — without a real number, the design gets built to the brief and the quote lands like a bomb. Real number, real conversation, real budget that holds.
- Size hoods and walk-ins for the future, not just day one. These are the two items you cannot cheaply modify later. Build in capacity for the menu you might cook in five years, not just the menu you’re cooking when you open.
- Phase the rest if you have to. Not every piece of cooking equipment needs to be in on day one. If budget is tight, get open with a workable subset and build the dream lineup in phase two — as long as you rough in the MEPs and floor drains for the future equipment now.
- Build in contingency. 10–15% of total project cost. Nonnegotiable. The projects that come in on budget are the ones that planned for the unplanned.
- Don’t forget smallwares and opening inventory. These are the categories most first-time operators discover the week before opening, and they’re not small numbers. Add them to the spreadsheet on day one.
Build a budget that holds.
HRI has been designing commercial kitchens since 1999. Bring us your concept, your space, and your real budget — we’ll build a line-by-line plan that accounts for what gets quoted, what gets forgotten, and what should be set aside for the things you can’t predict.
