Restaurant and cafe property finance

Ardent Capital Group brings the same method to every client: execution and strategy, clear advice for smart lending, and long-term growth. That means the right lender, structure and timing, straight advice so you borrow with confidence, and today's deal built toward where you want to be tomorrow. We are specialists in helping business owners secure finance to purchase their own property, and we understand the complex structures that often sit around it, including multiple trusts, holding companies and self-managed super funds. We take your restaurant or cafe to lenders genuinely comfortable with food and beverage venues rather than ones that read the premises as a generic shopfront, so the loan reflects how hospitality actually trades. As the business builds and perhaps a second site appears, our team stays alongside you well past settlement. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

Because almost none of it is transferable. A commercial kitchen, an extraction canopy, a grease trap, a coolroom and a dining fit-out are all built for the way you trade, and the next operator strips most of it out. A fit-out that cost $400,000 is commonly assessed at a fraction of that figure, and on a leasehold purchase it is valued on what it would realise on a forced sale. Knowing what a lender will actually lend against your fit-out puts you a step ahead, and we walk you through that figure before you sign a contract.

On a freehold, generally 60% to 70% of value, so a deposit of 30% to 40% is common. Buy just the business and the fit-out without the building and funding sits nearer 40% to 50%. The exact figure depends on your file and the security you can offer, so talk to us early.

It is the first question to settle, because the two are funded completely differently. Buying the freehold gets you 60% to 70% funding, a term of up to about 20 years, and the rent you stop paying counts toward servicing the loan. Buying the business and the fit-out on a leasehold basis gets you 40% to 50% at best, a term capped by the years left on the lease, and a much thinner list of lenders willing to look at it. Leasehold is far more common and is often the only thing on the market, so we work through what is achievable on your numbers before you make an offer.

Mostly as a retail or commercial premises: rent, comparable sales, floor area and location. This is worth getting right early. A pub or a hotel is valued on a capitalisation of its trade, so a stronger business genuinely makes the property worth more. A restaurant or cafe is not valued that way. Your trade supports the serviceability of the loan rather than the value of the building, and a fantastic set of books will not lift the valuation on a small shop in a quiet strip. The fit-out sitting inside it adds very little to the figure.

Two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns, BAS lodgements, and POS reports that show the day-part and weekly pattern of your revenue. Lenders look hard at the wage load as a share of turnover and at how much of the trade sits in one day or one meal period, because a cafe earning most of its money on Saturday and Sunday morning is read differently to one with steady weekday trade. Where the shop has traded under a previous owner, the vendor's figures are the starting point, and we help you interrogate them before you rely on them.

Yes, through two routes. Smaller amounts can be capitalised into the property loan where there is equity to support it. Larger fit-outs, and specialist plant like a commercial kitchen, extraction canopy, coolrooms, coffee machines or bakery ovens, are usually better funded separately on a chattel mortgage or equipment facility over three to seven years, sized to the working life of the equipment rather than the term of the property loan. A full restaurant fit-out commonly runs $250,000 to $600,000, so it is not a footnote to the purchase, it is a large part of it.

For a full-doc application, most lenders want two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns, personal tax returns for all guarantors, the contract of sale, the lease or the assignment of lease, and your POS or trade reports. Plenty of hospitality owners do not fit a standard full-doc assessment neatly. Alt-doc and low-doc routes exist, supported by an accountant's declaration, BAS lodgements and business bank statements. Rates are slightly higher, but they open the door for owners whose paperwork understates what the business actually earns. We work through your income situation upfront to identify the best approach.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. It is also one of the more intricate purchases in commercial finance, and the detail is what decides whether it works. The fund borrows under a limited recourse borrowing arrangement, so the premises sits in a separate holding trust and the lender can only come after that one property. From 10 August 2026 a new arrangement can only be used for business real property: a property trading wholly as a business generally qualifies, a property with a residence attached generally does not. Your operating company leases the premises back from the fund, in writing, at market rent supported by an independent appraisal, and the rent has to actually be paid. Cross-collateralisation is not available inside super, so the fund needs its own deposit and the 100% LVR structures described elsewhere on this page do not work here. Lenders cap SMSF lending below a standard purchase, generally between 65% and 75%, and want cash left in the fund after settlement. We know this sounds complicated. It is, and that is exactly why we do it every day. Reach out to our team and we will guide you through the entire process. We structure the finance, tell you which lenders will take a restaurant or cafe premises as SMSF security and on what terms, and bring in the SMSF specialists and licensed advisers who set the fund side up. You will not be working it out on your own. Get that right and it is a solid, compliant structure.

Often, yes. A decline usually means the file went to a lender whose appetite did not match the purchase, not that the purchase is unfundable. The common reasons are a fit-out valued well below what the vendor is asking, a short remaining lease term, a wage load the credit team did not understand, or a trading history under two years. Non-bank and specialist lenders assess food businesses differently and are more comfortable with shorter histories and business-only security. We will give you a straight answer on whether it is fundable elsewhere.

Yes, and it is usually funded in two parts. The premises is financed as a property loan at 60% to 70%, and the deck ovens, rack ovens, proofers, dough mixers and refrigeration are financed separately on a chattel mortgage over three to seven years. Specialist baking plant has a thin resale market, so lenders lend conservatively against it and may want a contribution on the equipment as well as the property. Floor loading, three-phase power, trade waste consent and ventilation all get checked, and wholesale supply contracts to cafes and grocers strengthen the income read.

Yes, though not with a property loan, because there is no premises to mortgage. Catering businesses are funded through asset finance and working capital instead: a chattel mortgage over your commercial kitchen equipment, coolrooms, hot boxes, marquees and delivery vehicles, and an overdraft or line of credit to cover produce, casual wages and the gap between running an event and the invoice being paid. If you later take a production kitchen on a lease or buy one outright, that becomes a leasehold or freehold conversation and we will handle it then.

Going direct gives you one lender's appetite and one set of criteria. Food businesses split lender appetite sharply: some banks will fund a freehold happily and will not touch a business-only purchase, others take a dim view of a wage load above a certain share of turnover, and several will not fund a fit-out at all. A broker who writes these regularly knows which lenders are actually approving restaurant and cafe purchases this quarter, and how each one reads a food business. Presenting it to the wrong credit team is how a fundable shop gets declined.

Most of the time, no. We are paid a commission by the lender once your loan settles. Where a purchase requires significant preparation, a small mandate fee may apply, and we will always be upfront about this before work begins.

Although we are based in Sydney, we service clients across all major Australian cities, including Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart, along with their surrounding regional areas. Wherever your premises is located, we can arrange your finance.

Although our main speciality is property loans for business owners, we also assist with commercial kitchen equipment finance and working capital for cafés and restaurants. On asset finance, that covers the commercial kitchen and extraction canopy, coolrooms and refrigeration, bakery ovens, proofers and mixers, coffee machines and grinders, the dining fit-out, POS and delivery vehicles. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and cash-flow funding to cover produce and stock, wages, a quiet season, and the fit-out of a second site. Catering businesses with no premises to mortgage are funded here too, through asset and working capital finance rather than a property loan.

Yes. That is our core ethos, helping you understand the right strategy, structure and clear advice from the very first conversation. Our main borrower profiles are established restaurant, cafe and bakery owners seeking finance from $100,000 upwards, so a first commercial loan is well within our wheelhouse. We will walk you through the difference between buying the freehold and buying the business, the deposit you will genuinely need, and what your fit-out is actually worth to a lender, before you commit to anything.