How to gain a Food Permit without losing your shirt in the process

To commemorate our opening for lunch service on this upcoming Friday (“July 9th ) we’ve decided to share our journey to towards the privilege to legally prepare food for public consumption.

The road to a food permit can be scary, long, confusing and expensive. We managed to get our food permit in a short record period of time and we managed to not lose our shirts in the process. We purchased equipment, financed renovations, and paid for the necessary permits for about $8,500.00

We’d like to share our experience in hopes of alleviating the confusion in this process.

Ingredients

• 1 Realtor (we recommend Weslee Knapp of Keller Knapp Realty) 
• 1 Location Equipped with Range Hood and Grease Trap
• 1 Underemployed Architect
• 1 Reliable Contractor
• 1 Smurf (We’ll explain later)
• 1 Pound of Courage and Willingness to stop at nothing to reach your goal.

Directions
1. Be humble, don’t be a know it all and forget anything you’ve heard about the employees at the Department of Health (especially in Fulton County). The Fulton County Department of Health inspectors are great people and they only want to help you reach your goals. If they are difficult, it is possible that you’ve done something offend, irritate, or frustrate. Don’t rock the boat.
2. Find a suitable location with an existing range hood and grease trap. At all costs avoid white box spaces, because the costs to build one out suitable for code can be a bottomless pit of money and a series of ulcers. A range hood and grease trap will cost you at least $30,000, but more like $50,000.00
3. Once you’ve found your ideal location schedule a Department of Health pre-inspection prior to actually signing your lease. A department of health pre-inspection will detail everything that needs to be done to bring your place to code.
4. Schedule a meeting with your contractor to get a detailed estimate on the costs to fix all the errors detailed in the department of health pre-inspection report.
5. Sign your lease. 36-60 months is par for the course.
6. Hire an architect to draw up site plans of your space. Don’t have your architect sign your plans. Pass them off as your own homemade plans as they’ll be scrutinized much less.
7. Submit your architectural plans to the Department of Health for approval.

8. Begin your renovations. We recommend paying for supplies and providing final payment upon completion of the work. (No exceptions or excuses)
9. Buy your equipment used and don’t pay the asking price. Shop around to get an idea of what stuff costs and then make your offer.
10. Hire a Smurf. Smurf is a God-send. (I don’t know where we found him) He’s got about 20 years in the restaurant equipment business. If you’ve eaten at a LongHorn Steakhouse chances are he installed the equipment and built out the kitchen.

11. Schedule your final inspection and pray.

12. Collect your food permit.


It is really simple. It shouldn’t take a long time and it shouldn’t cost you 10s of thousands of dollars. Feel free to reach out to us for more detailed questions info@black-tie-barbecue.com