Restaurant and Café Design and Fit-Out in Cairo, by One Team

Opening or refreshing a restaurant or café in Cairo? NoVi Designs and Finishing designs and builds food and beverage spaces that look good, work for your kitchen team and open on time, with one team, one contract and one schedule, across Cairo, New Cairo and Sheikh Zayed.

Food and beverage spaces we design and fit out

• Restaurants: casual dining and full-service restaurants, with dining zones, a clear service route from kitchen to table and a bar or pass where the concept needs one.
• Cafés and coffee shops: a coffee bar that baristas can work fast behind, a mix of quick and long-stay seating, and power points where laptop guests sit.
• Bakeries and dessert shops: display counters, production areas behind the front of house and storage planned for daily deliveries.
• Rooftops and outdoor seating: weather-resistant finishes, shading, lighting and drainage for terraces and roofs.
• Kiosks and units in malls: compact layouts that meet the mall fit-out rules and handover dates.

What we deliver

• Concept and interior design: layout, seating plan, your brand in the space and 3D visuals.
• Kitchen coordination: layout and service points coordinated with your kitchen equipment supplier.
• MEP works: power, gas, water, drainage, kitchen extraction, HVAC and lighting.
• Finishes and joinery: durable floors, wall finishes, counters, bars and ceilings.
• Furniture and signage: supplied and installed.
• Handover: snagging, as-built drawings and a defects period.

Planning a layout that serves fast

A restaurant layout starts from the kitchen and the service route. We plan how food leaves the pass, how waiters return dirty dishes without crossing the guest path, where the cashier and the waiting guests stand, and how deliveries and waste leave by a back route. Seating is planned for the mix your concept needs, such as two-tops that can join for groups, bar stools, booths or communal tables, so you get the covers you need without crowding the aisles.

Working with your kitchen supplier

Your kitchen equipment supplier specifies the equipment. We collect the equipment list and installation data early and coordinate gas, water, drainage, grease traps, electrical loads and the extraction hood with them before floors, walls and ceilings are closed. That avoids the most common and most expensive surprise in food and beverage fit-out: breaking finished floors to move a drain or a gas point.

Extraction, ventilation and air conditioning

Kitchen smoke and smells must leave the building without reaching your guests or your neighbours. We plan the hood, duct route and exhaust point with the building rules in mind, balance fresh air so doors do not slam or pull smells into the dining room, and size air conditioning for a busy room on a Cairo summer evening.

Finishes that survive daily service

Kitchens and back of house need slip-resistant, easy-clean floors and washable walls. In the dining area we choose finishes that look good under your lighting and stand up to chairs, spills and daily cleaning, with joinery and counter tops that are sealed and repairable.

Fitting out in a mall or commercial building

Most restaurants and cafés in Cairo open inside malls, commercial buildings or ground floors of residential compounds. We prepare the drawings that the landlord or building management usually asks for before work starts, follow their working hours and safety rules, and plan the programme backwards from your opening date. Licensing requirements depend on the activity and the location, so we ask you to share the requirements you have received and design to meet them.

How a project runs

1. Site visit and brief
2. Concept, layout and budget estimate
3. Detailed design and fixed scope
4. Execution with weekly progress reports
5. Handover before opening day

Restaurant, café or bakery: what changes in the fit-out

The building works look similar, but each type of outlet is planned around something different. A full-service restaurant is planned around the kitchen, the pass and the waiter routes. A café is planned around the coffee bar: the espresso machine, grinders, water filter, drainage and the queue in front of the counter. A bakery or sweets shop is planned around display counters, the production area behind them and cold storage, and refrigerated counters need their own power, drainage and ventilation. A delivery-led or cloud kitchen puts most of the budget into the kitchen and a quick pickup point for riders, with a small front of house.

Check the unit before you sign the lease

Many restaurant problems are created or avoided at lease stage. Before you commit, we can visit the unit with its plan and check the points that most often stop a food and beverage concept:

• Is there a route for the kitchen exhaust to leave the building, and does the landlord allow it?
• Is the electrical supply enough for the kitchen, coffee machines and air conditioning, or does it need an upgrade?
• Is gas available, or will the kitchen run on electric equipment?
• Are there drainage points where the kitchen and the bar need them, with enough fall and space for a grease trap?
• What ceiling height is left once ducts and air conditioning are in?
• What does the landlord or mall allow for the façade, signage and outdoor seating, and what are its working hours for fit-out?

The answers go into a short test layout, so you know whether the unit works before you pay key money or rent.

Your brand in the space, the façade and signage

Guests decide whether to walk in from the outside. We design the shopfront, entrance, signage zones and window views with the same care as the dining room, within what the landlord or mall allows, and carry your identity through materials, colours, lighting and custom pieces rather than covering walls with logos. On the El-Dahhan restaurant branch in Nasr City, for example, NoVi's design commission covered the interior, the exterior façade and the integration of the brand identity.

Industrial and exposed-ceiling interiors

Exposed ceilings, concrete and visible conduits are popular in Cairo cafés, and they are less forgiving to build than they look. With no false ceiling to hide them, ducts, cable trays, sprinkler pipes and light fittings become part of the design and must be set out neatly and installed in the right order. We coordinate the service routes with the finishes, seal or paint the exposed structure, and plan acoustics, because hard surfaces make a full room loud.

Opening a second branch or rolling out a chain

When a concept works, owners want the next branch to feel the same and open faster. We turn the first branch into a set of standards: the core layout, counter and bar details, approved materials and furniture, lighting and signage. Each new unit is then adapted to its own size, shape and landlord rules, so the brand stays consistent without forcing a layout that does not fit.

What drives the cost of a restaurant or café fit-out

• The condition of the unit: a bare shell, a fitted unit to strip out, or a refresh of an operating outlet.
• Kitchen services: extraction, gas, drainage, grease traps and electrical upgrades.
• Air conditioning and fresh air for the number of covers.
• The level of finishes, furniture and lighting, and local versus imported items.
• Custom joinery such as bars, counters, display units and booths.
• Façade, signage and outdoor seating.
• Landlord requirements, night work and the time left before opening.

Kitchen equipment is usually bought by the operator from a specialist supplier. For everything else we quote from an itemised bill of quantities after a site visit, not from a price per square metre.

Selected food and beverage work

NoVi's commission on each project is stated on its case study page, as published in our portfolio. Most of the projects below were design commissions, and the Sheikh Zayed restaurant and coffee shop included execution.

• Restaurant and coffee shop, Sheikh Zayed: 160 m² in an industrial style, where NoVi's scope covered interior finishing, electro-mechanical and light current works, seating and decorative elements.
• El-Dahhan Restaurant, Nasr City: about 250 m² of interior and façade design with brand integration (design commission).
• El-Dahhan Restaurant, Suez Road: 530 m² of hospitality interior design (design commission).
• Talisman Hotel, Zamalek: 940 m² of reception, restaurant and waiting-area interiors (design commission).
• Hassan Café, Riyadh: a 400 m² café with interior design, furniture and fixtures, lighting and custom joinery (design commission).
• El Mukhtar Sweets, Al Khobar: a sweets shop planned around a continuous run of display counters (design commission).

See our restaurant and commercial work

• Restaurant design portfolio
• Rooftop design portfolio
• Concept store design portfolio
• Commercial design portfolio

Related services

• Hotel and hospitality fit-out
• Clinic fit-out in Cairo
• Office fit-out in Cairo
• Clubhouse, show unit and sales centre fit-out for developers

Book a site visit

Call or WhatsApp +20 106 778 8687, or landline +20 2 2749 8958. Office: Bavaria Town Towers, Kattameya Road, Tower 3, 9th Floor, Unit 91, Cairo. Sunday to Thursday, 10:00 to 18:00.