Finance for the front of house and the back.
Espresso machines, full kitchen fit-outs, walk-in cold rooms, EPOS, refrigerated vans and dining-room furniture. With payment structures that work for seasonal trade.
£28m+
Funded for hospitality
12 days
Average kit-out turnaround
Seasonal
Payment profiles available
60mo
Max term on commercial kitchens
If it earns its keep, we've probably funded one.
Coffee & espresso
Faema, La Marzocco, Rocket, Sanremo, Slayer. Plus grinders, water filtration, milk fridges, brew bars.
Commercial kitchens
Combi ovens (Rational, Convotherm), induction ranges, prep tables, dishwashers, ventilation. Full fit-outs funded.
Refrigeration
Walk-in cold rooms, blast chillers, multi-deck displays, prep fridges, ice makers. Foster, Williams, Adande, Polar.
EPOS & front-of-house
Square, Lightspeed, Toast, Tevalis, Zonal. Including handhelds, KDS, kitchen printers and card terminals.
Furniture & fit-out
Banquettes, tables, chairs, lighting, signage, bar fit-out. Bundled into the same agreement as the kitchen.
Refrigerated transport
Reefer vans, multi-temp panel vans, refrigerated trailers for delivery and outside catering operations.
How hospitality & catering deals usually structure.
Typical ticket
£15k – £120k per fit-out
Range we fund
£8k espresso machine → £400k full restaurant build
Term
24 – 60 months
Deposit
0 – 15%
Structure
Hire purchase for owned-asset kit; finance lease where landlord retains fixtures; refinance ahead of second-site openings.
The usual pain.
First-year cash flow is tight
Lenders focused on filed accounts won't help a 9-month-old restaurant. We have hospitality-specialist funders who weight on covers, day-parts and pre-opening trade.
Soft assets are sector-tricky
Furniture, lighting and signage depreciate fast. Generic lenders won't touch them. Hospitality lenders happily fund them as part of a fit-out package.
Seasonal trading distorts metrics
A coastal restaurant's January is irrelevant. We use lenders who model 12-month trailing or seasonality-adjusted turnover.
How we structure it.
Hospitality-specialist lenders
Two funders we work with do nothing but pubs, restaurants, coffee shops and hotels. They underwrite on the right metrics first time.
Multi-site programmatic finance
Rolling facilities for groups opening 2–8 sites a year. Pre-approved budgets, 14-day drawdowns per site.
Seasonal payment structures
Lower payments November–February, full payments March–October. Common on coastal and tourism-led venues.
A real hospitality & catering deal we placed.
£62,000
£62k espresso fit-out funded over 5 years
A second-site fit-out — La Marzocco machine, grinders, undercounter fridges and a bespoke counter — would have wiped out the cash buffer needed to cover the first three months of rent.
Read the full storyReviewed by UK businesses
Sorted in 36 hours
"Bank wanted three weeks just to look at the file. AssetFi had the agreement signed and the digger paid for in 36 hours. Couldn't fault them."
Genuinely no fees
"I'd been stung by brokers before so I asked twice — really, no fees? Confirmed in writing. Got a sharper rate than my bank too. They've now done four vans for me."
Understood our cash flow
"We needed a CBCT scanner but our last accounts had a bad quarter. AssetFi went to specialist healthcare lenders, came back with three options and explained each properly. Brilliant."
Our panel
Lenders we use for hospitality & catering
Independent of any single lender. We place every deal with the funder offering the best fit on rate, structure and speed.
Plus 40+ specialist funders covering challenger banks, asset-specific lenders and tier-2 underwriters. Lender names shown are trademarks of their respective owners.
Questions hospitality & catering customers ask.
We're a new restaurant — can we still get finance?
Yes. We have hospitality-specialist lenders who'll underwrite businesses with under 12 months trading on the strength of director experience, signed lease, fit-out plan and trading projections. Higher deposit (15–20%) is normal at start-up stage.
Can finance cover furniture, signage and lighting?
Yes — soft assets like furniture, signage, lighting and decorative items can be bundled into a hospitality fit-out agreement. Lenders generally cap soft assets at 30–40% of the total facility, with hard kit (kitchen, refrigeration) making up the balance.
Are seasonal payment plans available?
Yes — common in coastal, ski-area and tourism-led venues. Typical structure: 6 months at 60–70% of the headline rental, 6 months at 130–140%. Same total repayment, smoother on cash flow.
What if we want to exit the equipment when our lease is up?
Finance lease with a defined end-of-term option is the right structure here — we agree upfront what happens to the kit at the end (return, secondary rental, sale to a third party). Worth flagging at quote stage so we structure it properly from day one.
Ready to fund the next bit of hospitality & catering kit?
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