By premises
CCTV for restaurants and cafes
A restaurant needs the cash counter, the entrance, the kitchen door, the rider pickup point and the parking covered, with cameras chosen for dim dining light. A small cafe is covered for PKR 55,000–85,000 with four cameras, and fifteen to thirty days of retention is enough for this trade.
Last reviewed
Counter and rider window
The counter camera watches payments the way it does in any shop. The newer position is the rider pickup point: order-swap and missing-item disputes with delivery platforms are settled by a camera showing which bag left with which rider, timestamped. For cafes doing serious delivery volume it has quietly become the second most-pulled recording.
Dining rooms are dark on purpose
Evening dining light defeats ordinary cameras — grain and smearing arrive exactly when the room is full. Low-light sensor quality matters more than raw megapixels here, the reverse of the usual buying advice. In the late-closing strips around Jinnah Super and Kohsar Market, the entrance and dining cameras do their real work well after dark.
The kitchen door, not the cooking line
A camera on the kitchen entrance records who went in and what came out — enough for stock deliveries, cylinder changes, staff movement and the back-door question. Filming the cooking line itself adds heat, grease on the lens and staff resentment for very little, and that lens would need wiping at every service visit regardless.
What CCTV does a restaurant need?
Do cameras in the dining area put customers off?
Not with sensible placement — wide room views rather than cameras over tables, plus signage at the door. Diners in Islamabad expect cameras in any late-open venue; what they notice is a camera aimed at their table.
How long should a restaurant keep footage?
Fifteen to thirty days. Platform disputes close within days and till discrepancies within a stock cycle. Spend the saved drive budget on a better low-light camera for the entrance instead.
Rather have it done?
Business CCTV is built around the counter, the entrance, the stock area and the back door, with storage long enough to catch problems you only notice at stocktake. Systems for Islamabad marts, pharmacies, schools and offices start at PKR 85,000, and can tie into access control and your point of sale.
Business CCTV systems in Islamabad — prices and scope