Restaurant insurance that covers the whole kitchen — nationwide.

Most restaurants build around a business owner’s policy (BOP) — commercial property plus general liability — and then add the lines a BOP leaves out. The common full stack is a BOP, liquor liability (if you serve alcohol), workers’ compensation (required in nearly every state once you have employees), employment practices liability (EPLI) for wage-and-hour and harassment claims, equipment breakdown and food-spoilage coverage, commercial auto and hired & non-owned auto if you deliver, and cyber coverage for your POS and card data. Restaurants are treated as a distinct, higher-hazard class because of open flame and grease, wet floors, foodborne-illness exposure, alcohol service, and high employee turnover, so the program should be built around those exposures rather than a generic small-business policy.

General liability policies contain a liquor liability exclusion: they will not respond to injury or damage arising from serving alcohol. If your restaurant or bar sells, serves, or furnishes alcohol, you need a separate liquor liability policy (sometimes called dram-shop coverage). It responds when a patron you served becomes intoxicated and causes injury or death — to themselves or a third party. How much exposure you carry depends heavily on your state: some states impose broad “dram-shop” liability on the business that served an obviously intoxicated patron, while others (notably California) generally place the liability on the drinker, not the server. Many leases and most liquor licenses require proof of liquor liability regardless of the state rule.

Dram-shop liability is the legal doctrine that a business serving alcohol can be held responsible for harm caused by an intoxicated patron. The rules vary dramatically. Texas has a true dram-shop statute (Alcoholic Beverage Code §2.02) that makes a provider liable when it serves someone obviously intoxicated, but offers a “safe harbor” defense for businesses whose staff are TABC-certified. California, by contrast, generally provides no dram-shop liability — Civil Code §1714 treats the drinking, not the serving, as the cause — with a narrow exception for serving obviously intoxicated minors. Florida sits in between, imposing liability only for serving a minor or a known habitual drunkard (Fla. Stat. §768.125). Your liquor liability limit should be set to the law you actually serve under.

In nearly every state, yes — once you have employees, workers’ compensation is mandatory, and the thresholds are low (in many states a single employee triggers the requirement). Restaurants are a high-frequency workers’ comp class: burns and scalds, knife and slicer cuts, slips on wet or greasy floors, and lifting and back injuries are routine, and high staff turnover keeps new, less-experienced workers in the mix. Because premium is driven by payroll and class code, it matters that your operation is rated under the correct restaurant/food-service codes and that tipped wages are reported correctly. A documented safety program and a return-to-work process help control both claims and premium over time.

Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) covers claims by employees — wage-and-hour disputes, harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination — and restaurants are among the most-sued industries for these claims. The reasons are structural: a large, often young and tipped workforce; tip-pooling and overtime rules that are easy to get wrong; off-the-clock and meal-break disputes; and very high turnover. Wage-and-hour class actions in particular can dwarf a single property or liability claim. A standard BOP does not cover employment claims, so EPLI is added separately. In states with aggressive labor enforcement — California’s Private Attorneys General Act (Labor Code §2699) is the prime example — the exposure is even larger, and EPLI becomes close to essential.

Equipment breakdown covers the sudden mechanical or electrical failure of the systems a restaurant runs on — the walk-in cooler and freezer, refrigeration compressors, HVAC, ovens and fryers, and increasingly the POS and connected kitchen equipment. Standard property coverage often excludes internal breakdown, so this line fills that gap, paying to repair or replace the equipment. Food-spoilage (or food-contamination) coverage is the companion: when a covered breakdown or a power interruption knocks out refrigeration, it reimburses the perishable inventory that spoils. For a restaurant carrying thousands of dollars of product in a walk-in, an overnight compressor failure can be a serious loss, which is why these two coverages are usually added together.

If your restaurant delivers, you have auto exposure that your BOP does not cover. Owned delivery vehicles need commercial auto. When employees use their own cars to deliver, or when you rely on third-party drivers, hired & non-owned auto (HNOA) coverage protects the business against liability arising from those vehicles — your general liability and BOP will not. Note that delivering through a third-party platform does not eliminate your exposure: a plaintiff can still name the restaurant, and the platform’s coverage may not extend to you. Many restaurants also add cyber coverage at this point, since delivery and online ordering increase the volume of payment-card data flowing through connected systems.

Yes. Restaurant Insurance Quote is the national restaurant practice of Thrive Risk Management Insurance Solutions, a licensed insurance brokerage (CA License #6012320). We place coverage nationally through our appointed standard and specialty partners, so we can structure a program to match your state’s liquor liability rules, workers’ comp requirements, and licensing wherever you operate. Start with your state page or request a quote and we’ll confirm we can write your market before you spend time on paperwork.