From a signed lease to a working kitchen.
Architecture, health department plans, MEP, permitting, general contracting, equipment, stainless fabrication, installation and startup. Most operators assemble that from six companies. FSE holds the B General Contractor license, so it's one licensed team under one contract — since 1987, out of National City.
Six vendors, or one.
The usual way to open a restaurant is to hire an architect, an engineer, an expediter, a general contractor, an equipment dealer and an installer — then spend nine months translating between them.
The usual way
- Architect draws the shell without foodservice input.
- Engineer sizes MEP off assumed equipment.
- Health department kicks the set back. Nobody owns the fix.
- GC bids from drawings that don't match the equipment.
- Utilities land two inches off. Change order.
- You mediate. Your opening date moves. Twice.
FSE design-build
- We field-measure the space ourselves.
- Architecture and MEP are drawn to the kitchen plan.
- We carry the permit package through plan check.
- FSE general-contracts the tenant improvement under our B license.
- Our shop fabricates the stainless to our own drawings.
- Our crew rigs it, connects it, and starts it up.
Everything between the lease and the first ticket.
Take the whole thing or take one piece — plenty of clients arrive with an architect already hired and just want the kitchen done right.
Architectural Plans
A licensed architect team contracted to the project. Full sets for tenant improvement and new construction, drawn with the kitchen plan rather than around it.
Kitchen Design
Our core discipline since 1987 — layout, workflow, equipment schedule and elevations that everything else in the building accommodates.
Health Department Plans
The submittal set built the way San Diego County environmental health expects it: finishes, equipment listings, NSF certifications, warewash and handwash compliance.
MEP Engineering
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineered to the real equipment schedule — loads, gas sizing, waste and vent, exhaust and make-up air, panel capacity.
Plans & Permitting
We assemble, submit and carry the set through corrections. Building, health, fire and mechanical coordinated as one package.
General Contracting
FSE is the licensed B General Contractor of record — demolition, framing, MEP rough-in, finishes and build-out, scheduled against equipment delivery. Larger builds run with our construction affiliate, Legacy.
Architectural and engineering services are provided by licensed professionals contracted to the project and billed at an agreed rate — quoted up front with the rest of the scope, never as a surprise line item.
Nine documents, five phases of build.
Whatever else we're carrying, this is the core. Every sheet cross-references the equipment schedule and the quote, so one item number follows you from drawing to invoice to warranty tag.
Phase One · Design
01Site Survey & Existing Conditions
We measure the space ourselves — walls, doors, columns, ceiling heights, existing utilities. Verified on site before a line gets drawn.
02Menu & Concept Planning
What you're serving, how many covers, how many hands on the line. The menu drives the equipment list, not the other way around.
03Floor Plan & Workflow Layout
Kitchen, service counter and seating laid out around employee workflow and customer traffic. We'd rather move a line on paper than a hood on install day.
04Utility Rough-In Plan
Plumbing, gas and electrical located and dimensioned per piece — voltage, amperage, phase, gas load, water and waste. Includes spare conduit for year three.
05Floor Penetration & Drain Plan
Color-coded plan of every drain, trough and penetration relative to the equipment above it. Consolidated where possible — every cut you don't make is money you don't spend.
06Elevations & Fabrication Drawings
Front views of every wall and counter, dimensioned. Custom stainless is drawn here as shop drawings — because our shop is the one building it.
07Equipment Schedule & Spec Book
A numbered cut sheet per item: manufacturer, model, utilities, materials, options, NSF/ETL/UL listings, warranty and shipping weight. Bound for your GC and inspector.
08Permit & Health Department Package
The submittal set assembled the way plan check expects to receive it, so review doesn't stall on a missing sheet.
09Itemized Quotation
Line-by-line pricing tied to the same item numbers as the plan. Freight, casters, voltage and door swings called out. No mystery allowances.
Phase Two · Build
10Custom Fabrication
Stainless tables, counters, sinks, shelving and fit-in pieces built in our own shop to the elevations we drew — field-adjusted if the building disagrees with the drawing.
11Delivery & Rigging
We schedule freight, receive and inspect it, and rig it into place through tight doors and down stairs. Damage claims are ours to fight, not yours.
12Installation & Hookup
Set, leveled, seismically secured where required, and connected to the utilities we specified. Old equipment hauled away on the same trip.
13Startup & Staff Training
Every piece fired, calibrated and run before we leave. Your crew is walked through operation and cleaning by the technician who installed it.
14Punch List & Warranty
We close the list, register the warranties and tag the equipment — then the same number covers factory-authorized warranty work and everything after it.
What we build in
Four trades on staff. Not four subcontractors.
The reason we can promise a working kitchen instead of a drawing is that the people who build it are on our payroll — and they're the same people who come back when something needs attention.
Refrigeration
Walk-ins, reach-ins, prep tables, ice machines and remote systems — sized, installed, charged and serviced.
Mechanical / Hot Side
Ranges, fryers, ovens, combis, steamers, dish machines and mixers — all makes and models, including factory-authorized warranty work.
Custom Fabrication
Our own stainless shop. Pieces built to fit the building you actually have — not the one the catalog assumed.
Installation & Rigging
Delivery, set-in-place, leveling, utility hookup, seismic anchoring, startup and haul-away. Our trucks, our crew.
Frequently asked.
Do I have to take the whole package?
Not at all, and most clients don't. Some arrive with an architect and a GC already hired and just want the kitchen designed, supplied and installed properly. Others hand us a shell and want to be handed keys. The only thing we'd push back on is splitting the kitchen design away from the kitchen installation — that's exactly the seam where projects go wrong.
Who does the architectural and engineering work?
A licensed architect team contracted to the project, plus MEP engineers, working to our kitchen plan rather than the other way around. Because they're contracted rather than in-house, that portion is billed at an agreed rate — quoted up front so you see it before you commit, not as a change order later.
Who holds the contractor's license, and how does the general contracting work?
FSE does. We hold a California B General Contractor license alongside our C-43, which means FSE is the contractor of record for the whole tenant improvement — demolition, framing, MEP rough-in, finishes and build-out — not a specialist riding on someone else's license. On larger builds we scale up with our construction affiliate, Legacy. Practically, it means the construction schedule and the equipment delivery schedule are built by people who talk daily, so your combi oven doesn't land three weeks before the room is ready for it.
Do you handle permitting and plan check?
Yes — we assemble the set, file it and carry it through corrections, with building, health, fire and mechanical coordinated as one package. Health department plan check is where foodservice projects most often lose a month, and it's the part we've been doing in San Diego County since 1987. Timelines vary by jurisdiction and we'll give you a realistic read on yours before you build a schedule around it.
What do the B and C-43 licenses let you do?
The B is California's General Building Contractor license — it lets FSE hold the prime contract and run the entire tenant improvement, coordinating every trade. The C-43 is the sheet metal specialty license that covers the stainless fabrication, exhaust components and equipment connections a supply-only dealer legally cannot touch. Together they're why FSE can bid public and institutional work that requires a licensed contractor of record, and why you sign one contract instead of six.
How long does a project take?
Kitchen design typically runs two to four weeks. Plan check is the variable nobody controls — budget one to three months depending on jurisdiction and how clean the set is going in. Equipment is the other long pole: stocked items move in days, while specified cooking equipment, refrigeration and custom fabrication commonly run four to twelve weeks from release. We give you a real lead-time window per line item and sequence delivery against construction.
Can you work with used equipment to hold down the budget?
This is one of our favorite conversations, and very few dealers can have it honestly. FSE buys and sells used equipment and runs Maxx Auction, so we can build a hybrid package — new where reliability and warranty matter, reconditioned where they don't. For a first-time operator that's often the difference between opening and not opening.
Tell us about the space.
A real person reads every one of these — usually the same day. The more you tell us up front, the more useful the first conversation is.
- No obligation — a lot of these turn into "here's what I'd do if I were you."
- Have plans, a lease exhibit, or phone photos? Mention it and we'll send a link to share them.
- Still looking at spaces? Talk to us before you sign — we've seen what a bad building costs.
Or just call. 619-696-1699
3039 Hoover Ave., National City, CA 91950
Mon–Fri 7:00am–3:30pm