Rowanwood Lenders, a small-business funding broker in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sets out the order for a restaurant remodel: confirm city or county jurisdiction, look up permit requirements, collect contractor bids, separate the equipment list, then match funding. Food service accounted for 400 employer establishments across Santa Fe County, NM in 2023. Each lending partner reaches its own credit decision and fixes the terms.
Why order matters
Owners who line up the money first and the permits second sometimes discover the scope has to change, and the funding no longer fits. Santa Fe County had 400 food services and drinking places employer establishments in 2023, and 361 of them were restaurants and other eating places (County Business Patterns 2023). Each remodel among them faces the same sequence.
Food service also runs larger crews than most local businesses: only 26.5% of those establishments had fewer than five employees. A remodel that closes the dining room affects a lot of payroll, which is one more reason to plan the timeline before the funding.
Step 1: City or county?
Owners search for 'city of santa fe nm building permits', 'santa fe nm building permit search' and 'santa fe nm building department' (search suggestions observed 2026-10-16), but the city's rules apply only inside city limits. The City of Santa Fe covers just 24.6% of the land in ZIP 87501 (Census 2020 ZIP-to-place relationship file), so a Santa Fe address can sit in unincorporated Santa Fe County. Our license guide explains how to check which government covers your address.
Step 2: Find out what the work requires
Before collecting bids, ask the permitting office what the planned work involves: which plans are needed, which reviews apply and roughly how long they take. Your contractor will usually know, but the official answer is what counts.
Step 3: Collect bids that separate labor from equipment
Ask each contractor to split the estimate into construction work and equipment. That split matters for funding, because the two parts usually fit different products. A single lump-sum bid makes it harder to use the cheaper structure for each part.
Step 4: Match each part to the right funding
| Cost | Usually fits | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Construction, finishes, plumbing | Term loan | Paid back over years, like the improvement |
| Ranges, hoods, refrigeration | Equipment financing or lease | Range or hood is its own collateral |
| Point-of-sale and ordering systems | Lease or equipment financing | Technology dates quickly |
| Payroll during a closure | Short working capital, or a draw on a line | Short, defined gap |
A business term loan handles the build-out; equipment financing handles the kitchen line. Keeping them separate can lower the overall cost and leaves the equipment pledged only to its own lender.
Four points for the landlord before demolition starts
- Does the lease run long enough for the remodel to pay back?
- Will the landlord contribute to the improvements?
- Who owns fixed equipment such as hoods when the lease ends?
- Does the work need the landlord's written approval first?
Step 5: Leave a margin
Remodels run over. Rather than borrowing the exact bid, plan how an overrun would be covered: a contingency in the term loan, a line of credit kept in reserve, or owner funds. Partners respond better to a realistic budget than to a request that has to be revised halfway through.
Keeping the doors open during the work
A remodel that closes the dining room cuts revenue while payroll and rent continue. Staging the work so part of the restaurant stays open, or scheduling the heaviest work for the quietest days in your own sales records, reduces the gap. Whatever the plan, put the expected lost revenue in the budget and decide in advance whether working capital, a line of credit or owner funds will cover it.
The remodel file a partner reads
- The contractor's estimate, split into labor and equipment
- Quotes for the range, hood and cold storage, by model
- The lease and its remaining term, since a remodel in leased space needs time to pay back
- Recent bank and card-settlement statements
- State registration and existing debts
Our restaurant financing page covers payroll and equipment beyond remodels. Further Santa Fe County articles:the blog.
By Rowanwood Lenders · Updated
