A restaurant is equipped in five stations: cooking, cold, prep and wash-up, the dining room, and the counter. The order you buy in matters as much as the list, because extraction and the gas supply govern everything else and get decided before the first stove. The full list is below, with what is essential on opening day and what can wait. One thing up front: we publish no prices for the kitchen, because no verifiable Moroccan price list exists for that equipment; instead we give the questions that make a quote double.
In short
- Five stations: cooking, cold, prep and wash-up, dining room, counter.
- Extraction first. A hood and a duct get decided before any appliance, and negotiated with the landlord and the neighbours.
- Cold second, because it is the station that costs the most to fix after the fact.
- The counter is the only station that can be priced: a complete till station runs from 4 800 to 18 500 MAD at Moroccan resellers, or 0 MAD of software if the till runs on a computer you already own.
- What can wait: the kiosk, the second oven, the display fridge, the good terrace furniture.
The list, station by station
This table is the answer to the question. It holds for a forty to sixty cover restaurant with a short menu; a snack bar with no table service drops half the dining-room line, a pizzeria adds a separate oven.
| Station | Essential on day 1 | What can wait |
|---|---|---|
| Extraction and energy | Hood, duct, ventilation, gas supply and regulators, an electrical board sized for the load, fire extinguishers. | Nothing. This is the station where nothing gets deferred. |
| Cooking | Range or burners, a fryer if the menu depends on one, plancha or grill, an oven if you bake on site. | The second oven, the salamander, the crêpe plate, anything that serves a dish you have not sold yet. |
| Cold | Cold room or upright fridge, freezer, refrigerated prep counter, thermometers. | The display fridge, the wine cabinet, an ice machine if you have a freezer. |
| Prep and wash-up | Stainless worktops, sinks and a double bowl, dishwasher or glass washer, pans, scales, separated bins. | The professional food processor, the slicer, the blast chiller. |
| Dining room | Tables and chairs, lighting, ventilation or air conditioning, compliant washroom, menus. | The finished terrace, heavy decoration, the television, the sound system. |
| Counter | Till and software, receipt printer, cash drawer, card terminal, a connection for card payments. | Order kiosk, kitchen screen, second till station, customer display. |
The right-hand column is the one that saves an opening. An over-equipped kitchen ties up cash at exactly the moment you need it to cover three months of rent and wages without counting on takings.
The six questions that make a quote double
Ask them before comparing two proposals. Two quotes that do not have the same answers are not comparable, even at the same total.
- Gas or electric: gas costs less to run and demands a compliant installation; electric needs a supply rating the premises may not have. Get the board checked before you choose, not after.
- New, used or trade-in: the second-hand market in Morocco is real for stainless, tables and small cooking equipment. It is much less real for refrigeration, where a tired compressor gets paid for twice.
- After-sales service, named: ask who comes out, how quickly, and which parts are held in the country. An oven with no available spares is an oven that will stop you for a week.
- The warranty, in writing: duration, parts, labour, call-out. All four separately: a “one year” warranty that excludes the call-out covers almost nothing.
- Installation and commissioning: included or not, and who connects the gas, the water and the drain. It is the line most often missing from a quote and the most expensive to add later.
- Real dimensions, with clearances: an appliance is measured with its door open and the ventilation behind it. Many Moroccan kitchens are narrow and long, which has to be planned to the centimetre.
A quote that answers all six in writing is worth more than a cheaper one that answers none, and that is checkable before you sign.
The buying order, in seven steps
This order is not a preference, it is a physical constraint: each step decides the space and the power available to the next.
- Measure the premises and draw the goods flow: delivery, storage, prep, cooking, service, wash-up, bins. A plan on paper costs an hour and saves moving a hood.
- Deal with extraction and energy: hood, duct, roof or façade outlet, electrical capacity, gas supply. These are the only works that depend on the landlord and the neighbours, so they take longest.
- Install the cold and check the temperatures empty for two days before loading anything into it.
- Add the cooking, in the order of what the menu actually sells. An eight-dish menu does not need six appliances.
- Equip the wash-up, the station that is always underestimated and the first to jam a full service.
- Furnish the dining room last for the visible part, except the washroom and the lighting, which condition opening at all.
- Build the counter: till, printer, drawer, card terminal, and run a dry day with the team before the first customer.
Step 7 is the one people discover too late. A team learning the till during service makes order mistakes, and those mistakes end up as cash differences at close: see where cash variance comes from and how to end it.
Why you will not find kitchen prices here
Because no verifiable Moroccan price list is published for this equipment: suppliers work to quotes, the gap between local and imported stainless is large, and an invented figure would have you negotiating against a false benchmark. The one station where we do publish amounts is the counter, below, because Moroccan resellers display their prices. For the rest, have three suppliers quote the same written list, and insist on the six answers from the previous section.
What is specific to Morocco
Extraction and the neighbours, first. Many commercial premises sit on the ground floor of occupied buildings, and the hood duct becomes a negotiation with the building association as much as a building job. Settle it before paying for a single cooking appliance: it is the one item capable of pushing an opening back by months.
Then gas, dominant in kitchens here, with what it implies for compliance, bottle storage and regulators. Then water: a grease trap is required in most cases and its place belongs on the plan, not after the tiling. Finally seasonality, which decides the air conditioning and the terrace: in Marrakech or Agadir the terrace makes half the summer’s revenue, and air conditioning is not a comfort but a condition of service.
The second-hand market, lastly, is a genuine resource for stainless, tables, chairs and small cooking equipment, and a trap for refrigeration and electronics. The rule that works: buy used whatever has no motor and no circuit board, buy new everything else, and refuse both on different warranty terms.
The counter, the only station that can be priced today
These are a Moroccan POS hardware reseller’s public figures, read on 28 July 2026. They give you the order of magnitude of a complete checkout station, hardware only.
| What the counter needs | Price marker | What decides it |
|---|---|---|
| A complete touchscreen till station | 4 800 to 11 500 MAD depending on configuration | Touchscreen, printer and drawer built in or separate. |
| The POS software | 0 MAD with BelloPOS Lite, or a monthly subscription with most vendors | Perpetual against subscription: the five-year arithmetic is in our cost comparison. |
| A computer you already have | 0 MAD of extra hardware | An existing Windows PC is enough to run an offline till. |
| Receipt printer and drawer | included in the complete kits above, otherwise separate | 80 mm thermal for the receipt, drawer opened by the printer. |
| An order kiosk | up to 18 500 MAD for a self-service kiosk | Defer until after opening, except in high-volume fast food. |
- The detail of each peripheral, what is useful and what is not, is in our POS hardware guide.
- What the till needs to do on the restaurant side, tables, service and kitchen, is set out in POS for restaurants.
- A kitchen screen is justified by ticket count, not cover count: see what a KDS actually changes.
Mistakes to avoid
- Buying appliances before settling extraction. The most expensive mistake on this list, and an irreversible one.
- Over-equipping the cooking line. Six appliances for eight dishes tie up cash you will need in month three.
- Forgetting the wash-up. That is the station that stops a full service, not the oven.
- Buying used refrigeration with no loaded test. A compressor is judged loaded and at temperature, not empty.
- Installing the till the day before opening. The team needs to have entered a hundred orders before the first real one.
Frequently asked questions
What budget do you need to equip a restaurant in Morocco?
There is no honest single figure, and be wary of pages that give one: the premises, the menu, new against used and the state of the wiring make the total vary threefold. The useful method is to have three suppliers quote the same written list. The one station with public prices is the counter: 4 800 to 18 500 MAD depending on configuration, read on 28 July 2026.
What is genuinely essential on day one?
Extraction, compliant power, refrigeration, a cooking line that covers the menu, the wash-up, the washroom, tables, and a checkout station. Everything else is an operating choice that can be made in month three with money you have earned.
Can you open without POS software?
You can take money without it, but you will not know what you sell, hold stock, or produce an itemised receipt. BelloPOS Lite is free for life and runs on an existing Windows PC, which removes the budget argument.
Should you buy second-hand?
Yes for stainless, tables, chairs, shelving and small cooking equipment. No for refrigeration, anything with a circuit board, and anything whose failure stops service. The rule: no motor, no board, then used is fine.
How long does the full installation take?
The long part is not appliance delivery but extraction, electricity and the permissions that depend on them. Start there, and have the cold and cooking delivered when the premises are ready to take them, not before: equipment stored on a building site gets damaged while its warranty is already running.
And the till hardware, exactly what?
A screen, software, a thermal receipt printer, a cash drawer and a card terminal. The detail of each peripheral, with what is superfluous, is in our POS hardware guide.
What to take away
Equipping a restaurant is a matter of order more than of list. Extraction and energy get settled before any purchase, cold before cooking, wash-up before decoration, and the counter with a dry run before the first customer. Have three suppliers quote the same written list, insist on the six answers in writing, and keep for month three everything the right-hand column of the table allows you to defer.
The counter can be the cheapest station on the list
BelloPOS Lite is free for life and runs on a Windows PC you already own: orders, tables, receipts and stock, entirely offline. It is the one station on this list where you can start at zero dirhams and upgrade later.
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