How to approach upgrading retail space to commercial kitchen

[Bobby Kolev]

Hope I've found the right forums and asking the right question.

First time owner of small retail strip. Been an owner for 4-5 years, learned quite a few things already, among which is that a commercial kitchen is not something to be made or modified lightly - it has to be properly designed and properly made in order to function well.

So I have this retail store of about 1100 sqft that someone wants to take for a small coffee shop with the ability to bake.
My question is where do I start searching for someone to design/compute small walk-in cooler, grease trap, vent-a-hood, stove and HVAC on top of that so all this could become useable without anyone getting burned.

From my past experience I have local mexican crews who can do any and all of the listed things and they'd do them relatively well except they won;t ever be designed to actually work well together.

On the other end of the spectrum I've worked with american general contractors and they tend to cost 2-3 times the Mexican crews and, at least in my case, ended up delivering about same end result (in all fairness it was only kitchen remodeling, not design from ground up; but statement stands valid and I was able to later do almost the same at literally third of the cost).

Your expertise is appreciated.