FREE Restaurant Construction Project Plan (Gantt Chart)

Why use our Restaurant Construction Project Plan instead of Excel or Google Sheets?

Get started with our Restaurant Construction Project Plan in seconds while skipping the hassle involved with Excel or Google Sheets.

Build Gantt charts in minutes, not hours.

No project management experience? No problem. Tom's Planner offers a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface that's intuitive and easy to learn. Creating Gantt charts is a breeze, saving you time and effort. Compare that to the time-consuming, frustrating, manual formatting-intensive process of building a Gantt chart in Excel or Google Sheets.

Create a Gantt chart in minutes, not hours

Move at the pace of modern business with no learning curve or Googling formulas.

Good luck figuring out how to make a Gantt chart work in Excel or Google Sheets. Excel’s user manual weighs in at a hefty 500+ pages. It takes just five minutes with Tom’s Planner to start planning your first real project plan.

Headache-free collaboration and sharing.

Tom's Planner offers powerful options for sharing and collaborating on Gantt charts, including public links, PDF exports, and team access with customizable permission levels. It’s never been easier to communicate or ensure everyone’s on the same page. Compare that to Excel, where sharing and collaboration mean jumping through hoop after hoop and dealing with confusion and chaos.

How to use Tom’s Planner’s restaurant construction project plan to build and share your restaurant construction project.

Getting your project off the ground is as easy as 1-2-3.

Step #1

Click the 'start with template’ button to open the Restaurant Construction Project Plan.

Step #2

Register for a free account and watch a short video on using Tom’s Planner. The account is free forever, with no strings attached.

Step #3

You’re all set to use the Gantt chart template. Need additional help? Our AI assistant can create a custom Gantt chart Restaurant Construction Project Plan based on your project description.

Start with template

What is a restaurant construction project plan?

Building a new restaurant requires more than just a vision. You’ll need a well-defined plan that describes each stage of construction, from ideation and planning all the way through the final walkthrough. This is called a restaurant construction project plan. Of course, you can also use a restaurant construction Gantt chart for additions, remodeling, rebranding, and other similar projects.

How a Gantt chart helps

You need a solid, well-defined plan during the restaurant planning and construction process for a few reasons. First, it helps you define and describe the project. What’s the goal? You might think that it’s obvious, but all stakeholders must share the same vision.

A restaurant construction Gantt chart provides visibility into many aspects of your construction project using graphic representations of milestones, dependencies, and tasks.

A restaurant construction project plan often includes fields such as:

Tasks and subtasks required
Percentage of tasks/project completed
Planned hours for the project and per task
Milestones and payment schedules
Task duration (real versus planned)

Using a Gantt chart like Tom’s Planner allows you to customize those fields and surface important information at a glance, such as:

Materials required, inventory levels, and allocation status
Subcontractor information, including tasks assigned and contact information
Key project achievements
Important dependencies and links between project-related activities

A restaurant construction project plan improves your efficiency and helps keep all those involved focused on their tasks through completion.

When to use a restaurant construction project plan

You should use a restaurant construction project plan with any new build, renovation, or expansion project. A restaurant construction Gantt chart provides the guidance and understanding necessary.

Planning Phase:

A restaurant construction Gantt chart can help clarify the sequence of events in your project, along with the resources necessary to complete them and timelines for completion.

Resource Allocation:

It’s important to make informed decisions regarding resource allocation during your restaurant construction project. A well-defined schedule helps ensure that labor, materials, and equipment are available when and where necessary.

Cost Management:

Using a Gantt chart like Tom’s Planner, you can align payments with key milestones within the project. Not only does that ensure expenses are paid, but it helps ensure that you’re tracking and managing your finances accurately.

No project is too large or small to benefit from a restaurant planning and construction plan.

Who should use a restaurant construction project plan?

Restaurant construction projects require a wide range of teams and professionals to work together synchronously. Some of the most common users of a restaurant construction project plan include the following:

Architects and Engineers:

Generally speaking, the architect or engineer in charge of the project will create the restaurant construction project plan. If there is no architect/engineer, the general contractor or construction company will be tasked with creating the restaurant construction checklist.

Managers and Other Stakeholders:

Architects and general contractors are not the only people who should have a say in the plan’s creation. They will provide guidance, advice, and structure, but other stakeholders must also provide input. This includes the project owner/client, who is responsible for providing the overall vision, but also other stakeholders. Those may include the lender, insurer, county inspector, and many others.

Subcontractors:

Creating a restaurant design that welcomes guests while also ensuring smooth workflows for employees requires a wide range of professionals. Plumbers, contractors, and other subcontractors can refer to the construction project plan to synchronize their work with other trades, as well as to plan their material and resource needs.

The success of your restaurant construction project hinges on using a construction schedule. A Gantt chart helps you stay on time and budget.

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The top three pitfalls to avoid when creating a restaurant construction project plan

Ready to get started building your new restaurant? It’s an exciting prospect but going about it the wrong way could have serious repercussions. Avoid these three pitfalls when creating your restaurant construction project plan.

Not planning to meet health and safety codes:
Every inch of a restaurant must be designed with health and safety codes in mind. That applies to obvious things, like food storage areas and the kitchen, but it also applies to things that you might not think about, like the plumbing and electrical systems.
Solution:
Understand the health and safety codes that apply and ensure that all teams/subcontractors do, too.
Not planning for materials cost fluctuations:
It’s all too easy to pencil in a cost for lumber, flooring, and other materials, but by the time they need to be ordered, the cost could be several times what it was initially.
Solution:
Construction materials fluctuate dramatically in terms of cost, so you must build some flexibility into your budget from the very beginning.
Not planning effectively from the beginning:
No one likes surprises during construction projects, but they almost always occur. That’s particularly true with restaurant renovations and expansions, but even new builds can face serious challenges when things go awry.
Solution:
Make sure you plan effectively from the very beginning. A tool like Tom’s Planner provides critical guidance throughout the project with visual representations of elements like task dependencies, resource allocation, and more.

Using a Gantt chart can help you avoid these pitfalls and ensure a successful project.

What does a restaurant construction project plan include?

Unless you’re constructing a franchise restaurant, and sometimes even then, each facility is unique. Your restaurant will have a specific layout and design, number of tables/seats, bar capacity and location, kitchen floor plan, dock area for suppliers/shipments, and more. Your restaurant construction project plan should be just as unique as your soon-to-be-built facility. Some of the elements shared between new restaurant construction project plans include the following:

Physical location
Site analysis data
Dining room layout and square footage
Bar layout and square footage (if applicable)
Kitchen layout and square footage
Storage layout and square footage
Doorway and window placement
Overall compliance with health standards
Interior design elements and finish materials
Exterior design elements and finish materials
Landscaping design and materials

Four tips on how to make sure you reach your deadlines

The goal of your project is to get your restaurant completed and have the doors open as soon as possible. Hitting your deadline is central to that. Use these three tips to help you stay on target.

1. Plan your project carefully

Failing to plan is planning to fail, said Ben Franklin. That’s as true today as it was when he first penned those words. Take your time when creating your restaurant construction project plan. Work closely with your engineer, architect, or general contractor to ensure that you’re communicating your vision effectively and that all your questions are answered. You should have more than a rough restaurant construction checklist. You should have a robust document that answers key questions about every stage of development and provides guidance from beginning to end.

2. Create contingency plans

Part of handling the unexpected is having a plan for anything that might happen. While you can’t plan for all eventualities, you should have multiple contingency plans. What if you can’t get a certain material for the interior fishing? What if your equipment supplier can’t get the grills or fryers you need? What if your walk-in cooler can’t be constructed in time? These are just some basic examples. Contingency plans will help ensure that you can pivot quickly without losing time or momentum when things don’t go to plan.

3. Focus on the details

A successful restaurant renovation or build hinges on the details. You’re not just building any space – you’re building your restaurant. It should tie in directly with your vision while adhering to all applicable health and safety rules. It should also speak to your preferred clientele while bringing value and something new to the community. It’s all about the details. Working with the right people will free you from larger concerns with the project so that you can focus on the finer elements.

4. Break the project down into tasks

The secret to a successful restaurant construction project plan is to break it into smaller tasks. This helps provide better visibility into project completion, highlights task dependencies, and ensures that teams and contractors know what they’re supposed to be focusing on and when. Each task should have a clear start and end date. Tom’s Planner makes it simple to do that.

Gantt charts in Tom's Planner vs in Excel

	Excel	Tom's Planner
Cost	License required	Free version available
Learning curve	Hours	Minutes
Create your first Gantt chart	Hours	Minutes
Making an update in your chart	Several minutes	Seconds (drag & drop)
Sharing charts with others	At some point you will save and email a file titled: version_4_def_usethisversion_reallyfinal.xlsx	Online, one source of truth, always up to date, with no confusion
Look & Feel	Messy	Clean, polished and professional
Dependencies
Filtering
Zoom in/out
Automatic Legend
AI-assist		Let our AI assist do the work for you
Export to image or pdf	Requires workarounds to export	One mouse click

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