Red Line Plan for Cafés & Restaurants in Victoria

If you run a café or restaurant in Victoria and want to serve alcohol, or let customers bring their own, Liquor Control Victoria (LCV) will ask for a red line plan. It's a floor plan of your venue with a continuous red line around the licensed area: where alcohol is sold or served, where customers drink it, and anywhere else they may go with a drink, such as the toilets.

The general rules are the same for every venue. Our Liquor Licence Redline Plan Victoria guide covers them in full. This post is about what's different for cafés and restaurants: kitchens, courtyards, footpath dining, and the details that most often trip up a hospitality plan.

Which licence are you applying for?

What goes inside the red line depends on your licence or permit type, so confirm that first. Most cafés and restaurants hold one of these:

Restaurant and cafe licence. For venues whose main activity is preparing and serving meals.
On-premises licence. For venues that serve alcohol to drink on site but don't fit the restaurant and cafe model.
General licence. Usually pubs and hotels, but some larger food venues hold one.
BYO permit. If customers bring their own and you don't sell alcohol.

LCV publishes licence-specific plan requirements on its red line plans page. The sections below summarise the parts that matter for food venues.

What every café and restaurant plan must show

Whatever the licence, LCV's general requirements apply. The plan must:

Be at least A4, neat and easy to read
Outline the licensed area in a continuous red line
Show a north arrow
Include the address and surrounding street names
Show the measurements of the licensed area
State the total licensed floor area in square metres
Label key areas: bar or register, dining areas, kitchen, toilets
Describe how the boundary is marked where there's no wall (for example barriers, planter boxes or ropes)

Two things LCV specifically says not to do: don't base the plan on a satellite image, and don't show the location of your safe. Red line plans are public information once approved.

Kitchens, toilets and back-of-house

For a restaurant and cafe licence, LCV asks you to include kitchens, toilets and bathrooms in the red line, along with every area where you sell alcohol and every area where customers drink.

Storage rooms don't need to be included unless customers can get to them. A cool room or dry store that only staff use can sit outside the line.

Shared toilets are a common question in arcades and food courts. If your customers use them with a drink, they belong in the plan. If you're not sure how to draw a shared facility, it's worth asking LCV before you lodge.

Courtyards, beer gardens and rooftops

Outdoor areas on your own premises, such as a rear courtyard, deck or rooftop, can be included in the red line if customers will drink there. Draw them with the same care as the inside: dimensions, the area in square metres, and how the edge is marked if it isn't a wall or fence.

If the courtyard is new or being enlarged, the building work itself may also need permits from council or a building surveyor. That's separate from the liquor licence, but the same accurate floor plan serves both.

Footpath, kerbside and laneway dining

This is where licence type really matters, and where plans most often go wrong.

Restaurant and cafe and on-premises licences: include any kerbside, footpath or laneway areas your council has given you permission to use, and label them AA (authorised area). LCV's Example A plan shows how.
General licence: don't include kerbside, footpath or laneway areas in the red line, even if council has approved them. With council permission, you can serve customers in those areas up until 11 pm.
BYO permit: the licensed area can't include public areas such as footpaths or laneways at all.

In every case, the council permission comes first. Your council's outdoor dining or footpath trading permit sets where tables can go, and the red line plan should match it. If your footpath layout changes, check the plan still does too.

The 75% seating rule

A restaurant and cafe licence comes with a condition that tables and chairs must be set up for at least 75% of the customers in the venue at any one time. Preparing and serving meals must also be the main activity at all times, so the venue can't turn into a bar at night.

The red line plan doesn't have to show every chair, but a clear dining layout helps show how the venue operates. It also feeds into your maximum patron capacity, which is a separate number on your licence. See Red Line Plan vs Patron Capacity for how the two fit together.

Common mistakes on café and restaurant plans

Footpath tables inside the line on the wrong licence. Fine as an AA on a restaurant and cafe or on-premises licence; not on a general licence or BYO permit.
Leaving out the toilets or kitchen. Restaurant and cafe plans need both.
No square metre total. LCV needs the licensed floor area, and it may be used for your patron numbers.
Unlabelled outdoor boundaries. If a courtyard edge is a planter or rope, say so on the plan.
An old plan that no longer matches the fitout. If the floor plate has changed since the last plan, redraw it before you lodge.
A plan nobody can edit. A scanned PDF works once. When you add a courtyard next year, you'll want the CAD file.

How we draft café and restaurant red line plans

Send what you have. Existing floor plans, a lease plan or fitout drawings, plus photos. Tell us your licence type and any council-approved outdoor dining.
We confirm the track. If your existing plans are usable, it's a standard liquor redline: $499 flat, typically in 48 hours. If the venue has no reliable plans, we measure on site first. That measure is quoted per project, with a call-out fee for the site visit.
We draft to LCV's checklist. Continuous red line, north arrow, address and streets, dimensions, total square metres, labelled kitchen, bar, dining and toilets, and AA areas where your licence allows them.
You lodge and keep a copy on site. You get DWG + PDF: the PDF for the Liquor Portal and the wall, and the DWG for the next change.

We draft red line plans for venues across Melbourne and Victoria, and remotely for venues elsewhere in Australia when there are usable plans to work from. Note that interstate venues follow their own state's liquor regulator, not LCV.

Frequently asked questions

Can I include my footpath tables in the red line?

It depends on your licence. On a restaurant and cafe or on-premises licence, include council-approved footpath, kerbside or laneway areas and label them AA. On a general licence, leave them out; you can still serve there until 11 pm with council permission. A BYO permit can't include public areas.

Do I need to show every table and chair?

LCV's checklist doesn't require it, but you do need to label the dining areas, and a restaurant and cafe licence must have seating for at least 75% of customers. A clear layout makes the plan easier to assess.

Can I draw the plan myself?

Yes. LCV accepts neat hand-drawn plans that meet the requirements. See DIY vs Professional Liquor Redline Plans for when that works and when CAD is safer.

How much does a café red line plan cost?

A standard liquor licence redline is $499 flat with a typical 48-hour turnaround when we can work from usable existing plans. If the venue needs measuring first, that's quoted per project before we book.

Ready to get your café or restaurant plan drafted?

Send us the venue address, your licence type, any existing plans and details of council-approved outdoor dining. We'll confirm whether it's a straight $499 / 48-hour redline or needs a measure first.

Red Line Plans for Cafés and Restaurants in Victoria: What Your Plan Must Show