In 2025, the number of cafes and restaurants in the capital will increase to record levels

Since the beginning of January almost 700 more cafes and restaurants have opened in the capital. This is the biggest increase in the city’s catering network in the last two years. 348 new establishments appeared last year, and 364 in 2023.

In 2010, there were more than 8,500 cafes and restaurants in the city. Now in Moscow there are more than 22,600 eateries, from haute cuisine restaurants to cozy local coffee houses. Together, they can seat 858,000 customers.

Establishments offering Russian food are still popular with the public. Moscow has more than three thousand restaurants, including chain restaurants, in this segment of the market. They serve traditional borsch, Russian pies with different fillings, pelmeni and vareniki, and fried potatoes with mushrooms.

Moscow residents enjoy drinking coffee with colleagues, meeting friends in cafes after work and relaxing on summer verandas with their families, and all this supports capital’s economy. The city is helping owners grow their businesses, including by reducing administrative barriers, introducing online formats for document issue, and simplifying the regulations for erecting summer verandas.

Today there are more than five thousand summer catering establishments in the capital. Their number is growing every year—in 2010 there were only 1,242 summer verandas operating in the city. A few years ago they had to be removed each autumn when the cold weather set in. Today, however, open structures can not only be left up for the winter, but can continue to be operated under certain conditions.

This winter, restaurateurs kept 450 verandas in place, which helped them save more than one billion rubles. These funds were used by the entrepreneurs to purchase new equipment, train employees, renovate buildings, and decorate entrances to participate in window decoration competitions as part of the city’s seasonal projects, Summer in Moscow and Winter in Moscow.