How to open a café: the UK checklist (free template)

Opening a café is a hundred small jobs with a hard deadline. The coffee machine and the fit-out get the attention, but the jobs that catch new owners out are the boring ones: registering on time, getting the food safety paperwork running, and labelling the sandwiches properly.

Below is a checklist you can copy into your notes app or print. It's in roughly the order you'll need it. Legal requirements are marked, and where the rules differ across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we say so.

The café opening checklist

Copy this table. "Legal" means it's a legal requirement; everything else is strongly recommended practice.

3 months or more before opening

1 to 2 months before

28 days before

Opening week

Daily opening and closing checks to copy

These come from the FSA's Safer Food, Better Business pack. Add your own.

Opening checks

• Fridges, chilled display and freezers working properly
• Other equipment (oven, coffee machine, dishwasher) working properly
• Staff fit for work and in clean work clothes
• Prep areas clean and disinfected
• No sign of pests
• Plenty of soap, paper towels and sanitiser
• Hot running water at all sinks and hand basins
• Probe thermometer working, probe wipes available
• Allergen information accurate for everything on sale

Closing checks

• All food covered, labelled and put away in the fridge or freezer
• Food on its use-by date thrown away
• Dirty cleaning equipment cleaned or thrown away
• Bins emptied and new bags in
• Prep areas clean and disinfected
• Washing up finished
• Floors swept and clean
• Temperature checks recorded

How to use this checklist

Work backwards from your opening date. Pick the date, then put the registration task about 28 days before it. The FSA says not to register too early, but if you're already trading without registering, do it straight away.

Mark owners, not just ticks. Next to each task, write who is doing it. Most opening delays come from tasks everyone assumed someone else had.

Treat the "Legal" column as non-negotiable. Everything else you can adapt to your café. A two-person coffee kiosk and a 60-cover brunch spot need different routines, but both need registering, allergen information and a food safety system.

The three things cafés most often get wrong

1. Grab-and-go labelling

Cafés often pack sandwiches, wraps, salads and cake slices in the morning for the counter. That's prepacked for direct sale (PPDS). Since 1 October 2021, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, those packs need a label with the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with any of the 14 allergens emphasised (bold, capitals or a contrasting colour). For a sandwich, that means listing the ingredients of the bread too, not just "bread". Scotland has equivalent rules with its own Food Standards Scotland guidance.

Food made to order in front of the customer, or served loose from the counter, isn't PPDS, but you still have to give allergen information. See our allergen matrix template.

2. Counter fridges

A chilled display with the door open all morning struggles. The FSA recommends setting fridges and chilled displays at 5°C or below so food stays at 8°C or below. Check temperatures at least once a day, starting with opening checks, and probe between packs in the display, not just the dial. If chilled food has been out of the fridge for more than four hours, throw it away.

3. Training records

New owners often train staff well and record nothing. The law doesn't require a certificate, but you must be able to show staff have the right skills for their role. A simple record of who was trained on what, and when, covers you.

Or let ShiftComplete run it for you

A checklist on paper works until the morning someone forgets to tick it, or the sheet gets coffee on it the week before an inspection. ShiftComplete turns this template into the daily routine on your team's phones:

• Opening, closing and cleaning checklists that can change by weekday (deep clean on Mondays, coffee machine descale on Thursdays), with every tick named and timestamped, and optional or required photo evidence.
• Temperature logs for each fridge, display and freezer with its own safe range. Out-of-range readings are flagged on the dashboard.
• An allergen matrix with every menu item mapped to the 14 allergens, so whoever is on the counter can search it when a customer asks.
• Rotas built from staff availability. Staff set when they can work from their phone, you add busy periods, and ShiftComplete builds a draft rota in seconds that you tweak and publish.
• Clocking in and out, a setting you can switch on: staff clock in on their phone or the tablet behind the counter, you see hours worked against the rota, and you download hours as a spreadsheet with a total per person for payroll.

It's £1.49 per staff member per month with every feature included, and free for 60 days with no card needed. If you'd like a hand setting it up before opening day, book a free 15-minute set-up call.

For the paperwork side, read how to register a food business. If you're opening something bigger, see how to open a restaurant in the UK.