I have talked briefly before about whether or not you should get a general contractor. Okay, maybe more than briefly since I wrote two blogs about it.  But the decision of whether or not to get a general contractor is a big one.

Let’s talk again about what a general contractor does.

General contractors are the go between men and women. You would typically hire a general contractor to hire and supervise contractors (plumbers, electricians, builders, etc). General contractors also typically pull permits for you. A little trade secret is that if you hire a general contractor, they are likely to get a permit more quickly than if you, as an individual, were to try to pull a permit. General contractors usually have a good reputation, and the state/county is more likely to approve their permit requests in a timely manner.

Notice I use words like “typically”, “usually”, and “generally”. Every situation is different. Parts of the process like how long it takes to pull a permit and in turn, how long it takes to do your build, is entirely dependent on the situation. The size of your restaurant, the amount of restaurant equipment you’re installing, and the amount of other work needed to get your restaurant up and running, play a big part. If you’re doing a buildout of your restaurant – that is, installing new floors, walls, etc. – the time needed and subcontractors needing to be hired will be considerably different than someone who purchased a turn-key restaurant.

The decision to get a general contractor vs doing things yourself is one only you can make, but it is on you should consider. While we here at One Fat Frog don’t recommend one way or the other (because we have a lot of clients who go without a general contractor, and their restaurants are amazing and the opening process is easy enough), we do recommend that you stop in talk to us about your restaurant equipment. We have a lot of valuable resources available to you – just ask one of our Sales Frogs about our New Restaurant Resource Center!