Florida
The Most Useful Thing We Do Happens Before You Sign
Walking a prospective space and telling you what the landlord has actually delivered — exhaust route, grease routing, power, gas — is worth more than anything we do afterwards. Before the lease, every gap is a negotiating point. After it, every gap is your cost.
Before you sign. We will tell you what the landlord has actually delivered and what it will cost to make it a restaurant.
Pre-lease
We will walk the space before you sign it
Rent clock
Every week of delay is a week of paying for a closed room
Grease
Routing checked before design, not discovered at permit
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
What we build
What we build
Six venue types. Each has one constraint that dominates the project — each page names it.
Full-Service Restaurant
A full kitchen with a dining room. The most demanding food service buildout, and the one where the space either supports it or does not.
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Quick Service & Fast Casual
Usually a brand prototype rolled out across sites, where the value is repeatability and the risk is the specific tenancy.
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Bars & Nightlife
A venue where the number of people is the point. Occupant load drives exiting, restrooms and almost everything about the plan.
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Café & Bakery
The lightest food service buildout available, right up until the menu includes something that needs a hood.
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Ghost & Commissary Kitchens
Production without a dining room. The kitchen cost stays, the front-of-house cost disappears, and a set of shared-infrastructure problems appears instead.
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Food Hall Stalls
A compact buildout inside a larger venue, governed by the landlord's infrastructure and design guidelines as much as by code.
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The hard parts
The hard parts
The hood, the grease, the health department, the landlord, and the rent clock.
The Hood & Make-Up Air
The single largest mechanical item in a restaurant, and the one most often priced as though it were a piece of stainless steel.
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Grease & Drainage
Every commercial kitchen needs grease waste to reach an interceptor of adequate size, in a location that can actually be pumped out.
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Health Department Review
Food service premises are reviewed by the health authority as well as by building. Two reviews, two timelines, and they do not run in step.
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The Landlord's Delivered Condition
The lease describes what the landlord delivers. That description is where most restaurant budget surprises originate, and it is negotiable only before signing.
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The Rent Clock
From rent commencement until opening, a restaurant pays for a space that produces nothing. That is the real cost of every week of delay.
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The difference
How we work
The most useful thing we do happens before you sign
Walking a prospective space and telling you what the landlord has actually delivered — power, grease routing, exhaust path, structure for a hood — is worth more than anything we do afterwards. After the lease is signed, every one of those gaps is your cost instead of a negotiating point.
We price the rent clock as part of the job
A restaurant under construction is paying rent, paying for a build, and earning nothing. That is the real cost of delay and it is usually larger than any construction saving anybody found. It belongs in the decision.
Exhaust and grease routing before anything else
Where the hood exhaust goes and where the grease waste goes are the two questions that determine whether a space can be a restaurant at all. We check them before design, because discovering them at permit means the design was wasted.
We will tell you a space will not work
Some tenancies cannot be restaurants without landlord work nobody is going to fund. Saying that costs us the project and it costs you a lease you cannot get out of, so it is not a close call.
Start here
Have us walk the space
Before you sign. We will tell you what is actually there and what it will cost to make it a restaurant.
If the space cannot support a restaurant, you will hear that. It costs us the project and it saves you a lease you cannot get out of.
FAQ
Common questions
- What decides whether a space can be a restaurant?
- A route for exhaust to reach the roof, and grease waste reaching a serviceable interceptor. Neither is solvable by design if it is not there.
- What does "restaurant ready" mean?
- Only what your lease says. It has no fixed definition and the range between landlords is enormous.
- Why is the hood so expensive?
- It is a whole system — hood, ductwork, fan, fire suppression and conditioned make-up air. The hood is the visible tenth of it.
- Why does a dining room smell of the kitchen?
- Unbalanced make-up air. The room goes negative and pulls kitchen air into it.
- Who sizes the grease interceptor?
- The authority, based on your fixtures and seats. Not preference, and not the previous tenant's unit.
- Is there more than one plan review?
- Yes — building and food service. Two timelines that do not run in step.
- What causes most delay?
- Permitting, long-lead kitchen equipment and landlord work. Rarely the trades.
- Will you walk a space before we sign?
- Yes, and you should ask us to. It takes an afternoon.
Service area
Where we work
- Counties covered
- Broward · Miami-Dade · Palm Beach · Collier · Lee · Monroe · Martin · St. Lucie
- Office hours
- Mon–Fri 10:00 AM – 6:00 PMWe will look at a space with you before you sign the lease. That is when it is useful.
- Phone
- (954) 807-3208
Read our Google reviews — worth a look before you let anyone on your building.
No showroom, and that is deliberate
Romco is a service-area contractor. There is no trade counter to visit, because the work happens at your building rather than at ours.
Outside the immediate Broward and Palm Beach corridor we work through established local trade partners and manage the project ourselves. You deal with one point of accountability either way — the crew on site changes, the person answering for the job does not.
For anything urgent, call(954) 807-3208 rather than using the form. We would rather look at it than quote it blind.
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.