New Site Opening Compliance Checklist
A free compliance checklist for opening a new restaurant, pub or cafe site: food business registration 28 days before, premises licence and DPS, the food safety system, staff training, fire and gas certificates, insurance, and the evidence pack for the first inspection. PDF, dated back from opening day.
A new site opens on the day the fit-out finishes, the licence lands and the team is trained, and those three do not happen in the same week unless someone makes them. This free checklist runs backwards from opening day: what has to be done eight weeks out (food business registration, licence application, insurance), four weeks out (the food safety system, risk assessments, training), two weeks out (certificates, equipment, deliveries) and in opening week (the first checks, the first records, the pack for the inspector who will arrive within the first few months). For a group opening site N it is the difference between starting from paper and starting from the library.
What's in the PDF
Eight Weeks Out
Columns: Item · Owner · Due · Done (Y/N) · Notes.
Four Weeks Out
Columns: Item · Owner · Due · Done (Y/N) · Notes.
Two Weeks Out
Columns: Item · Owner · Due · Done (Y/N) · Notes.
Opening Week
Columns: Item · Owner · Due · Done (Y/N) · Notes.
First-Inspection Evidence Pack
Have every item to hand from day one. The first inspection usually arrives within months and sets the rating for years. Columns: Document or Record · Where It Is Kept · Ready (Y/N).
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Instead of filling in paper templates, Paddl generates new site opening compliance checklists automatically with AI - complete with digital signatures, mobile access, automatic reminders, and audit-ready records for EHO inspections.
Why you need this
What's included
How to use this template
Set opening day and work backwards
Write the opening date at the top and date each section from it. The registration and licence dates are fixed by law; everything else moves around them.
Name an owner for every line
Openings fail on the line nobody owned. Every item gets a name, even if it is the same name.
Assign the group library, not a blank pack
For a group, the food safety system, routines, risk assessments and training requirements already exist. Assign them to the new site and adjust for its layout.
Build the first-inspection pack in opening week
Have the registration confirmation, the food safety system, the training records, the certificates and the first week of records in one place from day one.
Review at week four
Walk the checklist again a month in. The items that slipped are the ones the second site will slip on too.
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