Commercial Fit-Out Soho

Commercial fit-out in Soho means shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, salons and clinics in period buildings around Carnaby Street, Berwick Street Market and Dean Street, often with flats upstairs. The inside is building work under Westminster's building control, while the shopfront, the signs and any shutters answer to its planning team and, where the unit falls inside it, the Soho Conservation Area. We strip out, build counters, floors, lighting, WCs and the front to your designer's drawings, and hand the unit back ready to trade.

For Soho, published UK guides put refurbishing a retail space at £1,500 to £3,000 per m² and a restaurant or cafe at £2,000 to £4,500 per m², and London units usually cost more (MyBuilder, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Soho: our own trades do the strip-out, back of house, counter fitting and finishes, and we coordinate the shopfront, extraction, electrical and fire specialists the unit needs.

The kind of commercial unit Soho actually has

Soho's customer facing units are small and close together. Carnaby Street is a shopping street, Berwick Street Market brings stalls and the shops that face them, and Dean Street and the streets around it hold restaurants, bars and cafes at street level and below. Behind a frontage like that the unit can be tight: a narrow ground floor, a lower floor for stores or a kitchen, and a separate door to the flats above.

The layout below street level shapes the job as much as the shop floor does. A lower floor used as a kitchen or store needs its own escape route and ventilation. The separate street door to the flats above also has to stay usable throughout the works, so your designer settles both on the drawings before we price. Opening dates matter here too: a closed unit in a centre this busy loses takings every day, so the programme is worked back from the day the doors open.

Shopfronts, shutters and signs on a Soho street

Changing the front of a Soho shop is a planning matter first. Westminster's shopfront design guide says the alteration and replacement of shopfronts generally requires planning permission, and advertisements may need separate advertisement consent. A canopy with no advertisements on it also needs planning permission. For units in the Oxford Street Development Corporation area, planning decisions now sit with the OSDC rather than Westminster City Council. In a conservation area such as Soho, the drawings should show the existing pilasters, fascia and stallriser and how the new front respects them in proportion and material. If the building is listed, listed building consent is needed as well, and it covers works inside the unit as well as the front.

Security needs deciding before the front is drawn. Westminster's guide says security shutters normally need planning permission and roller shutters will not normally be given consent. The alternatives to discuss are laminated glass, an internal open mesh grille or lockable timber stall panels, settled before the front is ordered. A specialist fabricator makes the front to the consented drawing, and we fit it last so the glass is not damaged during the internal works.

Use class, extraction and drains in a Soho food unit

Before a Soho cafe or restaurant is drawn, check what the unit is allowed to be. Shops, cafes, restaurants, clinics and gyms all sit in Class E, so moving between them does not usually need planning permission, but hot food takeaways, pubs and bars are sui generis and a change to one of them does. A condition on an earlier permission can also restrict the use or the opening hours, so your designer reads the unit's planning history first.

Cooking brings the hardest part of a Soho fit-out: extraction and odour control. An external duct up the rear of a building with flats above normally needs planning permission and the freeholder's agreement, and the filter and fan specification has to satisfy the residents as well as the planners. Inside, grease traps and floor gullies must connect to the existing drain runs, and the Soho Neighbourhood Plan, adopted on 8 October 2021, sits alongside the City Plan for any application.

Working around trading neighbours and residents in Soho

Soho shop units usually share a building with other traders or residents, so the programme is built around the people who stay. Westminster's Code of Construction Practice puts small projects at Level 4, where they are expected to follow its principles but need no formal approval, monitoring or fees. The 2026 version was approved in March 2026 and applies to new sites from 1 June 2026 and existing sites from 1 September 2026, so a job starting now falls under it.

Building control checks Part B fire separation and escape between the unit and the flats above. In practice the site needs dust screens and negative pressure at the shop door, deliveries booked around the market and restaurant service hours, and cutting done off the street. Where your neighbour trades late or a flat sits directly above, we agree quiet periods in writing before we start. The aim is that the landlord, the residents above and the businesses next door have no cause to complain before you open.

• Service counters, display walls and shelving
• Programmes worked back from your opening date
• Fire stopping and separation to the flats above a unit

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for the Fitzrovia West & Soho statistical area, which also covers west Fitzrovia. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Alongside commercial fit-out in Soho, the pages that usually help next are office fit-out in Soho, commercial fit-out across Westminster, what a main building contractor does, how snagging works at handover, our London commercial fit-out page and Tiling Cost.

The GS Renovation Difference in Soho

Every week a Soho unit sits closed behind hoarding is a week of rent with no takings, so the opening date is fixed first and the programme is worked back from it. We build from your designer's consented drawings, order the shopfront and counters early because they take longest to make, and keep one contact on site until handover. The electrics, gas and fire alarm are certified by the registered installers who did that work, and we collect those papers before the keys go back.

• Free follow-up visit after completion if anything needs attention
• A single point of contact for your landlord, the residents above and your shop staff
• Till, fridge and coffee machine circuits certified by a registered electrician

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254).