How Much Does It Cost to Open a Pub or Bar? The Equipment Budget

A starter set of wet-side equipment for a small pub or bar, one glasswasher, one dishwasher, one ice machine and one bottle cooler, costs roughly £4,200 to buy outright in 2026, or £235 a month to rent with nothing upfront. For a busier venue running bigger machines, those figures move to around £5,800 to buy or £385 a month to rent. That is the number every guide to opening a pub skips.

Search “how much does it cost to open a pub” and you get deposits, licences, refurbishment and working capital. That’s useful, but it treats equipment as a line buried inside “fit-out.” If you are the one signing the lease, you need to know what the machines that actually serve your customers are going to cost, and whether buying them outright is the right call before you have even opened the doors.

Opening a Pub Costs More Than Equipment, But Equipment Is the Bit You Can Plan For

Before the equipment line, there is the bigger picture. The British Beer and Pub Association’s guide for tenants and lessees (most recent public edition: 2023, via Punch Pubs) puts a typical tied-tenancy deposit at £5,000 to £30,000, and a leasehold deposit at £20,000 to £100,000, before a single glass gets washed. On top of that, selling alcohol needs a premises licence under the Licensing Act 2003, with its own application fees and a designated premises supervisor named on it (GOV.UK, Alcohol Licensing). Buying a pub outright as a going concern runs into six figures and up. None of that is a Barcare number, and none of it is what this article is about.

What almost none of those guides break out is the equipment itself: what a working bar actually needs behind the counter, what it costs, and whether buying it is even the right move for a first venue. That is the gap this article fills, and it is the one part of the opening budget you can plan precisely, because the machines and their prices are public.

What a Starter Equipment List Costs to Buy

Here is a representative wet-side kit at two venue sizes, priced from Barcare’s own catalogue so the numbers are checkable rather than estimated.

Small venue (compact bar, café, or a pub’s back bar):

Busier venue (a pub doing steady evening trade):

Those are entry-level machines matched by capacity, not the cheapest thing in each category or the most expensive. A busier venue could easily spend more on a pass-through dishwasher or a bigger ice machine; a very small operation could spend less on a countertop ice maker. Treat this as the shape of the budget, not a quote.

What the Same List Costs to Rent

Barcare rents the same categories of machine, priced monthly with installation and breakdown cover built in.

All figures exclude VAT. That is roughly £54 a week for the small kit and £89 a week for the busier one, spread over 12 equal monthly instalments rather than billed weekly. The dishwasher is usually the biggest single line in that total, so if you want the full breakdown for that machine on its own, our commercial dishwasher rental cost guide covers every model in the range.

The Number That Actually Matters: Day-One Capital

This is the comparison the “how much does it cost to open a pub” guides never make, and it is the one that changes what you can do with your opening budget.

Renting the same four machines takes roughly £4,000 to £5,800 off the capital you need before you can pour a pint, capital most new tenants would rather put into stock, staff wages and the working-capital buffer that actually gets a new venue through its first quiet months.

On sticker price alone, that advantage does not last forever. Add up the monthly rent and it overtakes the buy price at 18 months for the small kit and 15 months for the busier one. Barcare sees the same 13-to-19-month crossover on other categories it rents, such as ice machines and dishwashers, so this isn’t a special case built to flatter renting. If you are certain you will run the same site with the same equipment for three years or more, buying the kit outright is arithmetically cheaper over that period.

What You’re Not Paying For If You Rent

The crossover table only measures sticker price. It leaves out everything that happens after the machine is installed.

A Barcare rental includes delivery, professional installation, staff training and a continual parts-and-labour warranty for as long as the agreement runs. If a glasswasher fails on a Friday night, an engineer attends and the bill does not change. Buy outright and that same breakdown is a callout charge, an hourly rate and parts, on top of whatever trade you lose while the machine is out of action.

The minimum term on any Barcare rental is six months, after which it rolls month to month and either side can end it with one month’s notice. For a first venue where you are not yet certain of trade, that flexibility matters as much as the monthly price.

Working Out Your Own Number

The right answer for your venue mostly depends on two things: how long you expect to hold the site, and how much of your opening budget is already spoken for by the deposit, refurbishment and working capital above. Under about two years, or with capital already stretched by the lease, renting almost always wins. Beyond five years, with capital to spare, buying starts to look better on paper.

For the full working behind that decision, including per-machine breakdowns and the honest cases for both sides, see our complete guide to renting versus buying commercial catering equipment. If you’d rather browse what’s available first, our full range of commercial kitchen equipment covers everything beyond the wet side too, from ovens to fryers.

Common Questions