Commercial Kitchen Remodels

Boss PDX has built and remodeled commercial kitchens across the Portland metro for a decade — from ghost kitchens in converted warehouses on the eastside to full-service restaurant builds in Pearl District storefronts. We're a licensed general contractor (CCB #232383, WA BOSSPPL793RN) that specializes in the specific, code-heavy work of turning a raw space, or a tired one, into a commercial kitchen that passes Multnomah County health inspection on the first try and holds up to nightly service.

If you're searching for a commercial kitchen contractor in Portland, you already know this isn't residential construction with bigger appliances. It's a coordinated build across mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire suppression systems, all of it inspected against Oregon's version of the food code and Portland Fire & Rescue's hood and suppression standards. Get one system wrong and the whole kitchen sits dark waiting on a re-inspection. We've sat through those delays on other contractors' jobs before we got the call — this page is built from what we've learned fixing them.

What a Commercial Kitchen Build-Out Actually Involves

A commercial kitchen build-out is the process of converting a space — new construction shell, former retail unit, or an existing kitchen due for a gut remodel — into a fully code-compliant, functioning kitchen for food preparation and service. In Portland, that means threading together requirements from three separate authorities that don't always talk to each other: the City of Portland Bureau of Development Services (building, mechanical, electrical, plumbing permits), Multnomah County Environmental Health Services (food establishment plan review and licensing), and Portland Fire & Rescue (Type I hood suppression systems).

The work typically breaks into these phases:

• Design and equipment layout — mapping your menu and workflow to a floor plan that satisfies both operational efficiency and Multnomah County's plan review checklist
• Demolition — stripping the space to the studs and slab if it's a conversion, or clearing out old equipment and finishes on a remodel
• Rough-in — new plumbing lines, grease waste piping, electrical circuits, gas lines, and hood ductwork before walls and ceilings close up
• Hood and ventilation installation — Type I hood over cooking equipment with fire suppression, Type II hood over dishwashers or steam equipment
• Equipment installation — walk-in cooler/freezer, cook line, prep tables, three-compartment sink, handwash sinks
• Finishes — NSF-compliant flooring, wall surfaces (FRP or epoxy-coated), and cove base at every wall-floor junction
• Inspections and health department sign-off — the final gate before you can legally open

Because we run the general contracting and coordinate every trade under one roof, we sequence these phases so mechanical, electrical, and plumbing rough-in happen once, in the right order, instead of getting ripped open twice because an inspector caught a conflict late. That sequencing discipline is the single biggest driver of whether a kitchen build-out finishes on schedule or drags for months.

Equipment Planning: Hood, Walk-In, and Grease Trap

Three pieces of equipment drive almost every other decision in a commercial kitchen build-out, and they need to be locked in before permits get drawn — not after.

Commercial Hood Systems

Portland Fire & Rescue requires a Type I hood with an automatic fire suppression system over any equipment that produces grease-laden vapors — fryers, griddles, char-broilers, ranges. A Type II hood (no suppression required) covers equipment that produces heat and steam but not grease, like dishwashers, steam kettles, and ovens without open flame. Getting this classification wrong at design time is one of the most common — and most expensive — mistakes we see: a kitchen designed around a Type II hood that turns out to need Type I once the equipment schedule is finalized means re-running ductwork, adding a suppression system, and re-permitting mechanical.

Hood sizing also drives your make-up air requirements. Portland's mechanical code requires balanced air — for every cubic foot of air your hood exhausts, you generally need a comparable amount of tempered make-up air brought back in, or your kitchen will fight negative pressure, doors will suck shut, and your HVAC will never keep up. We size hood and make-up air systems together, not as an afterthought.

Walk-In Coolers and Freezers

Walk-in placement affects your plumbing (condensate drain lines), electrical (dedicated circuits, often 220V for compressors), and floor structure if you're going below-grade or need a ramped threshold. We coordinate walk-in delivery and set with the framing and slab work so you're not waiting on a six-week equipment lead time after the room is already built around the wrong footprint.

Grease Interceptors

Every commercial kitchen discharging wastewater with food waste or fats, oils, and grease in Portland is required to have a grease interceptor sized to the kitchen's flow and grease load, per City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services standards. Undersized interceptors are one of the most common causes of a failed final plumbing inspection — and one of the most expensive things to fix after the slab is poured, since it often means cutting concrete to upsize the interceptor or add an outdoor unit. We calculate interceptor sizing off your actual fixture count and equipment (three-compartment sink, pre-rinse, floor drains, dishwasher) at the design phase, not after rough-in is already in the ground.

Code Compliance for Portland Commercial Kitchens

A restaurant kitchen in Portland answers to more inspectors than almost any other commercial build type we do. Getting through all of them without a failed inspection comes down to designing to the strictest requirement from the start, not designing to code minimums and hoping.

• Oregon Structural Specialty Code and Oregon Mechanical Specialty Code — govern the building shell, hood ventilation, and make-up air
• Uniform Plumbing Code (Oregon amendments) — governs grease interceptors, floor drains, indirect waste, and backflow prevention
• Portland Fire Code — governs Type I hood suppression, portable fire extinguisher (Class K) placement, and egress
• Oregon Food Sanitation Rules (administered by Multnomah County) — governs equipment spacing, handwash sink placement, three-compartment sink configuration, and finish materials

These codes overlap in ways that trip up contractors who don't build commercial kitchens regularly. A handwash sink location that satisfies the plumbing code minimum distance-to-fixture rule might still fail Multnomah County's requirement that it be directly accessible from the cook line without crossing through a food prep zone. We build to the intersection of all four, which is what actually gets you a certificate of occupancy and a food service license on the same timeline instead of one holding up the other.

Multnomah County Health Department Requirements

Before you can pour a slab or hang drywall on a restaurant kitchen in the county, Multnomah County Environmental Health Services needs to review and approve your plans as part of your food establishment license application. This is a separate submission from your city building permit, and it needs to happen early — ideally concurrent with your building permit application, not after.

The plan review checklist covers things a general building permit reviewer won't flag: equipment NSF/ANSI certification, minimum clearances for cleaning behind and under equipment, handwashing sink placement relative to prep and dish areas, non-absorbent finish materials on walls and floors, mop sink location, and a finished floor plan showing every piece of equipment by make and model — not just "cook line, 12 feet."

You'll also need an ODA (Oregon Department of Agriculture) license if any part of your operation involves food processing, packaging, or wholesale distribution alongside retail food service — common for restaurants that also sell packaged goods, do catering, or run a commissary function. We flag this early in design if your business model touches any of those, because it changes equipment and space requirements.

Once construction is complete, Multnomah County does a pre-opening inspection. We schedule our own internal walk-through against the county's checklist before that inspection, which is why our Portland restaurant clients have a strong first-pass rate — we're not discovering the gaps at the same time the inspector is.

Electrical and Plumbing Considerations

Commercial kitchen equipment draws far more power than residential, and it's rarely a simple 120V circuit. Cook lines routinely need dedicated 208V/240V and sometimes three-phase circuits for ranges, convection ovens, and walk-in compressors. We map your full equipment schedule — including future equipment you're planning for phase two — against panel capacity before we finalize electrical rough-in, because upsizing a panel after drywall is closed up is a five-figure change order we'd rather help you avoid.

Plumbing in a commercial kitchen means indirect waste connections (no direct-connect to sewer for most equipment — it has to discharge through an air gap), floor drains at every wet station, hot water capacity sized for a three-compartment sink and pre-rinse running simultaneously with dish machine demand, and backflow prevention at every connection to the potable water supply. Undersized water heating is a quiet failure point — a kitchen that looks finished but can't hold 110°F+ sanitizing rinse temperature under real service load will fail health inspection even after passing plumbing final.

Ventilation Beyond the Hood

Hood exhaust handles cooking byproducts, but a commercial kitchen also needs general ventilation to manage ambient heat and humidity from dish machines, walk-in condenser units, and steam equipment. Portland's wet winters and increasingly hot summers both stress kitchen HVAC in different ways — condensation problems in cold months, heat load problems in warm ones. We design supplemental ventilation and, where the budget allows, dedicated kitchen HVAC zoning separate from the dining room, so front-of-house comfort doesn't get sacrificed to keep the kitchen crew from cooking in a sauna.

Flooring and Surfaces

Multnomah County requires commercial kitchen flooring to be smooth, non-absorbent, and easily cleanable — quarry tile, epoxy flooring systems, and sealed concrete with integral cove base are the most common choices we install in Portland kitchens, each with tradeoffs in cost, slip resistance, and installation downtime. Walls behind cooking equipment and in wet zones need FRP panels or epoxy coating, not painted drywall, which won't hold up to daily degreasing and steam. Every wall-to-floor and wall-to-wall junction needs a sealed cove — a detail that's easy to skip and is one of the first things a health inspector checks with a flashlight.

Timeline: How Long a Portland Commercial Kitchen Build-Out Takes

Realistic timelines for a Portland restaurant kitchen build-out:

• Design, permitting, and Multnomah County plan review: 6–12 weeks, depending on scope and current city permit review backlogs
• Construction (build-out only, permits in hand): 8–16 weeks for a full kitchen build-out; 4–8 weeks for a targeted remodel
• Equipment lead times: walk-ins, custom hoods, and specialty cooking equipment can run 6–14 weeks and should be ordered during permitting, not after construction starts
• Final inspections and health department sign-off: 1–3 weeks after construction completion, assuming no re-inspections

Total, most Portland restaurant clients are looking at four to eight months from signed contract to opening day, with permitting and equipment lead time — not construction labor — usually the longest pole in the tent. We start the equipment order and county plan review process the same week we start design, specifically to compress that timeline instead of letting it run in series.

Working During Business Hours

For existing restaurants doing a partial remodel — a new cook line, an expanded prep area, a walk-in replacement — closing entirely often isn't financially viable. We've phased plumbing and electrical rough-in around active dinner service, run noisy demolition during closed hours or off-days, and sequenced equipment swaps so a kitchen loses one station at a time instead of going fully dark. It takes more coordination than a straight gut remodel, and it costs a little more in scheduling overhead, but it's often the difference between staying open through a renovation and losing months of revenue. Tell us your service hours early and we build the sequence around them.

Commercial Kitchen Build-Out Costs in Portland

Pricing varies with scope, finish level, and how much of the shell already has mechanical, electrical, and plumbing infrastructure in place. Rough ranges we see across Portland metro kitchen projects:

• Basic build-out: $100–$250 per square foot — vanilla shell space, standard equipment package, minimal custom finish work
• Mid-range build-out: $200–$400 per square foot — full hood and suppression system, walk-in, upgraded finishes, more complex equipment layout
• High-end build-out: $350–$600 per square foot — open kitchen concepts visible to diners, custom equipment, premium finish materials, complex mechanical systems

For a typical Portland restaurant kitchen in the 800–1,500 square foot range, that puts most full build-outs in the $75,000 to $300,000+ range. A targeted remodel — new hood, updated equipment, refreshed finishes without touching the full footprint — usually lands well below that. We give firm numbers after a walk-through and equipment schedule, not before, because the two biggest cost swings (hood/suppression scope and grease interceptor sizing) can't be estimated accurately from a floor plan alone.

Why Portland Restaurant Owners Work With Boss PDX

Portland's restaurant and food service scene runs on tight margins and tighter timelines — every week a kitchen sits closed for construction is a week of lost revenue and staff you're trying to hold onto. We've built kitchens for food carts scaling into brick-and-mortar, breweries adding full kitchens to existing taprooms, and established restaurants doing their first major renovation in a decade. What carries across all of it is the same discipline: get the hood classification right, size the grease interceptor correctly, sequence the trades so nothing gets opened up twice, and walk the space against the county's checklist before the inspector does.

If your kitchen work overlaps with front-of-house or bathroom renovations, see our restaurant remodel services for the full-space approach, our commercial bathroom remodel page if staff or guest restrooms are part of the scope, and our plumbing and pipe fitting page for more on how we handle grease waste, backflow prevention, and commercial water heating.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a general contractor for a commercial kitchen remodel, or can I hire trades directly?

Oregon requires a licensed general contractor to pull the building permit and coordinate multiple trades on most commercial projects, and Multnomah County's plan review process moves faster when one party is accountable for reconciling building, mechanical, and health department requirements. Hiring trades separately usually means you become the de facto general contractor, absorbing the coordination risk yourself.

How long does Multnomah County plan review take for a new restaurant?

Plan review timelines vary with the county's current volume, but budget 4–8 weeks for initial review and expect at least one round of comments requiring revisions on a first submission, especially if this is your first commercial kitchen project. We submit complete equipment schedules and finish specifications up front specifically to reduce review cycles.

Can I use residential-grade appliances in a commercial kitchen?

No. Multnomah County requires NSF/ANSI-certified commercial equipment for food preparation and service. Residential appliances don't meet the sanitation, construction, or fire safety standards commercial code requires, and using them will fail health department plan review.

What's the difference between a Type I and Type II hood, and how do I know which I need?

Type I hoods are required over equipment producing grease-laden vapors (fryers, griddles, ranges, char-broilers) and include automatic fire suppression. Type II hoods cover heat- and steam-producing equipment without grease (dishwashers, steam kettles, ovens without open flame) and don't require suppression. The determination is based on your specific equipment and cooking methods — we make this call during design review, before mechanical permits are drawn.

Do I need a grease interceptor if I'm only doing light food prep, no frying?

Likely yes. Portland's Bureau of Environmental Services requirement is based on discharge from food-contact fixtures generally, not just fryer waste — three-compartment sinks, prep sinks, and dishwashers all typically require interceptor connection regardless of whether you fry anything on-site.

Can you build my kitchen while I stay open?

Often, yes, for remodels and partial upgrades. We phase work around your service hours, sequence trades to take one station or system offline at a time, and schedule the loudest or most disruptive work for closed hours. Full gut renovations of an active kitchen usually require at least a partial closure — we'll walk you through what's realistic for your specific scope.

Ready to Talk Through Your Kitchen Build-Out

Whether you're opening your first restaurant, converting a commissary into a full kitchen, or finally fixing a hood system that's been failing inspection for two years, Boss PDX handles the whole build — design coordination, permitting through the city and Multnomah County, and every trade from demolition to final health department walk-through. Call 844-BOSS-PDX or fill out our free estimate form and we'll schedule a walk-through of your space.