TABC permits for restaurants: which one, and what it actually allows

Start with what you're actually pouring

TABC permits are scoped by beverage type and where the drink gets consumed, not by "restaurant" versus "bar" as a category. If your bar program is full spirits, wine and beer, on-premise only, you're looking at a Mixed Beverage Permit. If you're wine-and-beer only but want to sell some of it to go — bottles of wine at the register, say — the Wine and Malt Beverage Retailer's Permit covers both on- and off-premise sales of wine and malt beverages. If you're beer-and-malt-beverage only and strictly on-premise, the Retail Dealer's On-Premise License is the narrower, cheaper lane. Picking the permit starts with an honest answer to what's actually going on your bar list, not what you might want to add later — adding spirits later usually means upgrading the permit, not amending the one you have.

The three core permit types

A Mixed Beverage Permit (MB) authorizes the sale of distilled spirits, wine and malt beverages for on-premise consumption — the permit most full-bar restaurants hold. A Wine and Malt Beverage Retailer's Permit (BG) authorizes the sale of wine and malt beverages for both on-premise and off-premise consumption — no spirits, but broader on where the sale can happen. A Retail Dealer's On-Premise License (BE) authorizes the sale of malt beverages only, for on-premise consumption — the tightest scope of the three, and typically the cheapest to hold.

The Food and Beverage Certificate: the restaurant add-on

Holding an MB, BG or BE permit doesn't by itself make you a "restaurant" in TABC's eyes — that status comes from the Food and Beverage Certificate (FB), a required add-on certificate for holders of those permits who want to run under restaurant rules rather than bar rules. To qualify, the business has to either meet TABC's definition of a "restaurant" or keep alcohol sales to 60% or less of total sales, among other requirements. That 60%-alcohol ceiling is the current published threshold — it's a different framing than the older "51% food sales" rule some operators still quote, and it works out to at least 40% of total sales coming from food and non-alcoholic beverages rather than exactly 51%. If your bar program runs heavy relative to your kitchen, this is the number to watch — TABC's rule is about the cap on alcohol, not a floor you clear once and forget.

Why the Food and Beverage Certificate matters beyond the sales split

The 60%-or-less test isn't just a compliance checkbox — several other TABC rules and local ordinances key off whether a business holds an FB certificate, since it's the marker TABC uses to treat a business as food-forward rather than alcohol-forward. If your sales mix drifts toward the alcohol side of that line over time — a slow kitchen quarter, a bar promotion that spikes drink sales — it's worth checking your actual ratio rather than assuming the certificate you got at opening still fits how the business runs today.

The Late Hours Certificate, if you need it

If you want to sell or serve alcohol between midnight and 2 a.m., that's a separate add-on: the Late Hours Certificate (LH), available to MB, BG and BE holders. It's not bundled into any of the three base permits or the Food and Beverage Certificate — a restaurant with late hours has to hold it on top of whatever else it carries.

Timeline: confirm directly with TABC

Processing time for a TABC permit or certificate application varies by permit type, county and how complete the application is when it's filed — there's no single published turnaround time this guide can give you as a number. Build your timeline around confirming current processing times with TABC directly rather than assuming a fixed number of weeks, and apply as early in your opening timeline as you can once your location and beverage program are locked in.

Setting this up on your own site

None of this changes how your food menu, online ordering or reservations work — TABC permits govern what you're allowed to pour and how, not how guests order it. What does connect is tax: once you know which permit and certificate you're operating under, the mixed beverage taxes that apply to your bar sales are a separate matter from the sales tax your online food orders compute automatically — see the mixed beverage tax guide for how those two returns stay apart.