Trusted Industry Partners

A turnkey promise is only as good as the network behind it.

We do not pretend to manufacture refrigeration or print signage. What we do is hold the schedule together across the people who do — and we work with the same ones on purpose.

Core partners: 4
Equipment brands: ~90
Flooring: Canada-wide
Region: Ontario & national

Why we use the same partners every time.

Tendering every trade on every job looks like it saves money. In practice it costs schedule, because a crew that has never read your drawings asks questions that a crew that has read forty of them does not.

A fixed network means the equipment dealer already knows how we spec a hood. The contractor already knows our drain details. The flooring supplier already knows we order the vestibule and the walk-in surround on the same purchase order. Nobody is learning on your project.

It also means accountability is short. When something goes wrong at 7 a.m. there is one phone call, not a round of four vendors explaining why it is somebody else's problem.

Commercial Food Equipment

Norpex

Canada's online commercial equipment dealer, carrying roughly 90 foodservice brands and shipping coast to coast. Our first call on almost every equipment package.

Based: Waterloo, ON
Website: norpex.ca

Equipment is where food projects quietly go wrong. A unit that ships four weeks late, a condenser that will not fit the wall it was drawn against, a range that arrives in natural gas when the building is plumbed for propane — any one of those pushes an opening date and nobody finds out until the crate is open.

Norpex is based in Waterloo, which means a spec sheet question can usually be settled the same day rather than sitting in a supplier’s queue. They stock and ship nationally, so the same relationship works whether the project is in Cambridge or Thunder Bay.

What makes them useful to us specifically is that they will do a 3D kitchen layout before anything is ordered. We take that layout and reconcile it against our mechanical and electrical drawings — hood coverage, make-up air, drain locations, service clearances, panel capacity — and resolve the conflicts on paper. That is a far cheaper place to find a problem than a loading dock.

Every unit we place through Norpex is commercial-grade and carries the certification our health-unit and ESA reviews will ask for. That is not a small thing. Sourcing an uncertified import to save a few hundred dollars is one of the more expensive mistakes an operator can make, because it surfaces at final inspection when the space is otherwise ready to open.

What we rely on them for

Refrigeration, cooking lines, prep, warewashing and beverage systems
Roughly 90 carried brands including True, Vulcan, Hobart, Atosa and Vitamix
3D kitchen layout design that we reconcile against our mechanical drawings
Quotes inside one business day, with price matching on like-for-like units
Coast-to-coast LTL freight and full manufacturer warranty on every unit

Equipment we source through them

On these projects

Commercial Flooring Supply

Shop Flooring

Flooring supply built around a project-level takeoff rather than a per-box price — including a contractor program with volume pricing and freight rated to the job site.

Based: Ships Canada-wide
Website: shopflooring.ca

Flooring in a food space has to survive things that residential flooring never sees: standing water, hot grease, cart traffic, sanitizer, and a health inspector who wants a smooth, cleanable, non-absorbent surface that runs properly into the wall base.

It also has to arrive on the right day. Flooring sits on the critical path — it goes in after the slab work and before the equipment lands — so a short shipment or a two-week backorder stalls everything downstream.

Shop Flooring solves the ordering side properly. Their Project Builder does a real takeoff room by room and accounts for waste, underlay, trim and transitions, which is where most flooring orders come up short. We have lost days on other projects to a delivery that covered the dining room and missed the vestibule. Freight is rated to the actual job site rather than a flat national fee, so the number in the budget is the number that gets invoiced.

Their contractor program gives us volume pricing that we pass through at cost, and we can pull adhesives, underlay, moldings and wall base on the same order rather than chasing four suppliers. On a build where the schedule is measured in weeks, consolidating a delivery is worth more than it sounds.

We usually run free samples past the operator before the full order goes in. Finishes look different under commercial lighting than they do on a screen, and a sign-off on the physical piece prevents an expensive change of mind after the boxes land.

What we rely on them for

Commercial-grade luxury vinyl, tile, hardwood, laminate and carpet tile
Project Builder takeoff that accounts for waste, underlay, trim and transitions
Contractor program with volume pricing and job-site-rated freight
Adhesives, grout, underlay, moldings and wall base sourced in the same order
Free samples so finishes can be signed off before a full order is placed

On these projects

General Contracting & Site Works

Pasha Construction

Our general contracting partner for demolition, structural work, and the trades coordination that turns an approved drawing set into a built space.

Based: Ontario
Website: On request

A drawing set is a promise. Somebody still has to build it, on a live site, against a schedule, without deviating from the thing the municipality actually approved.

Pasha Construction is who we bring in for that. They handle demolition and structural alterations, the concrete work that food spaces always need — floor drains, trenching, slab sloped properly to drain — and the day-to-day coordination of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing trades on site.

The reason we keep the same contractor across projects is continuity. A crew that has already built four commercial kitchens to our drawings knows what our details mean, knows the inspection sequence, and knows that a drain rough-in has to be exactly where the mechanical sheet says it is rather than roughly where it looks right. That familiarity removes a whole category of rework.

They also carry the deficiency list. Between substantial completion and final inspection there is always a punch list, and somebody has to own closing it out rather than declaring the job finished and leaving the operator to chase trades. That is the part of a build that most affects whether an opening date holds.

What we rely on them for

Demolition, framing, drywall and structural alterations
Concrete cutting, floor drains and sloped-to-drain slab work
Trades coordination across mechanical, electrical and plumbing
Site supervision against the permitted drawing set
Deficiency correction ahead of final inspection

On these projects

Branding & Digital Marketing

AspireCo

A Kitchener-Waterloo digital agency, working since 2013 on the launch side of a project — brand, website, local search and the advertising that fills the room on day one.

Based: Waterloo, ON
Website: aspireco.ca

A finished build is not a business. We have watched well-executed rooms open quietly to an empty dining room because nobody within five kilometres knew they existed, and we have watched an average room open to a lineup because the launch was handled properly.

AspireCo has been doing the digital side of that in Kitchener-Waterloo since 2013. They handle brand identity, the website and online ordering, local search, and the advertising that runs in the weeks either side of an opening.

The reason we bring them in early rather than at handover is that branding decisions have physical consequences. Signage needs a power feed and a landlord approval. A drive-through menu board needs a footing and a conduit run. An online ordering system needs a printer location and a counter that has somewhere to put the bags. If those decisions arrive after the drawings are permitted, they become change orders.

So on projects where the operator does not already have a brand, we run the identity work in parallel with design and permitting. By the time the space is ready for final inspection, the signage is fabricated, the Google Business Profile is verified, and the launch campaign is scheduled — which means the grand opening is an actual event rather than an unlocked door.

What we rely on them for

Brand identity, signage direction and menu design
Website development and online ordering setup
Local SEO and Google Business Profile so the room gets found
Paid advertising and email marketing for the opening window
Social media setup and management

On these projects

Suppliers & trades

Want to work with us?

We add partners slowly and keep them for a long time. If you supply, fabricate or build for the food and hospitality sector in Canada and you can hold a schedule, we would like to hear from you.

Introduce your company

One contract

You deal with us. We deal with them.

Every partner above is coordinated by your NHFC project manager. You get one schedule, one point of contact and one invoice trail — not four vendors and a group chat.

Start Here (226) 336-9954

Mon – Fri, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. · No obligation