A premises licence is not only about alcohol. Under the Licensing Act 2003, supplying hot food or hot drink to the public between 11pm and 5am is “late night refreshment”, a licensable activity in its own right. A takeaway or a late café that trades into the night needs a licence for it, whether the food is eaten on the premises or taken away.
What it tells a supplier
- An application that asks only for late night refreshment is usually a takeaway or a late-opening food business, not a bar.
- The hours applied for tell you how the business plans to trade.
- Where a hot food takeaway is opening in a unit that was something else, expect a planning application too. In England a takeaway sits outside the use classes, so the change of use needs permission.
A small takeaway buys less than a new restaurant or bar, so these records often sit in a lower tier in CiviFlow. They still matter to suppliers of commercial kitchens, extraction and refrigeration.