Running a restaurant is tough sledding these days. The cost of food, labor, and rents keep rising, squeezing already thin margins. Still, many amateur chefs dream of getting their cuisine discovered by more discerning foodies. Now in LA County, that could be closer to reality. The county health department is allowing people to sell food they make in home kitchens — if they meet standards for a county health permit. The program is Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO), and a similar one is already operating in Riverside County.
“Folks who fill out these applications can have a health inspector come to their home, just like it was a restaurant. They get food handler certification, just like they worked at a restaurant. And then, if everything checks out, people can do takeout. They can even carry their own delivery. And they can even host people in their homes for a micro restaurant,” explains Meghan McCarron, an LA-based journalist covering food and culture.
This can help change the equation for those who are curious about starting a food business but are afraid to lose tons of money (by buying their own equipment, etc.), she points out.
However, the reality is that Californians are already cooking and selling food out of their homes — you can find them on Facebook Marketplace — to earn extra cash, fulfill a passion, or hope to build a line of work, McCarron says. MEHKO allows them to enter the formal economy.
McCarron visited a popular MEHKO called Cali Tardka in Riverside County, which serves Indian food such as chicken tikka masala, naan, fries. She recalls picking up her order from a suburban home, then ate it at a nearby park. Later, she spoke to the cook(s) and learned that they made everything from scratch. “So it was really cool to see … the process of how it's made as well.”
For those who run a MEHKO, the biggest challenge is being discovered by new customers, McCarron says. “Getting the word out can be a little tough. … Often people are using Instagram or they're using Yelp. There's a couple approved platforms, but the state actually has to approve a platform for use. MEHKOs are not permitted to use third-party delivery. They can only deliver their own food by hand. According to the law, you can't use things like DoorDash, which a lot of people use for discovery.”
McCarron says after she pulled all the MEHKO permits in Riverside County and Googled everything, she found Tiny Saigon, based out of a couple’s home. They used to have a Vietnamese sit-down restaurant in a strip mall, but it was too much to keep afloat.
Why did LA County green-light this program? Because residents spent years advocating for it. Also, Supervisor Holly Mitchell told McCarron that the aim is to bring more street vendors into the legal market.
“A problem MEHKO can solve, specifically for LA County, is you won't just have a restaurant run out of your home necessarily, but you can use your home kitchen as a commissary for your food cart. And previously, LA County required that street food vendors use commercial commissaries. … I don't even think there's enough of them for all the street vendors in Los Angeles. But also, those are pretty expensive.”
What about money earned? According to the law, a MEHKO’s maximum allowed gross annual sales is $100,000. However, when factoring costs of ingredients, home kitchen repairs, advertising, etc., actual profit may be challenging, McCarron points out.
“In LA County, if you combine your MEHKO with what is called a compact mobile food operation, which you and I … might consider a food cart, then that cap goes up to $150,000 a year. And that might be a bit more doable for folks.”
Upholding food safety rules wasn’t challenging, according to the seven or eight MEHKO owners who talked with MCarron.
“Once you take a food handler certificate program, and you learn everything else you need to learn, it's pretty easy to cook a larger amount of food safely in your kitchen. I think the bigger challenges would be having enough refrigerator space or cold storage space, maybe some challenges around how you're disposing of cooking oil and your trash. … If you had a dog or cat, keeping them out of that space every day might get a little annoying.”
McCarron expects a lot of these kitchens to pop up in LA. “Los Angeles has such a massive informal food economy that county officials basically told me they're just trying to play catch up, especially after COVID. But we'll see. It could offer a really great opportunity. … Food is a really important part of our culture. And commercial real estate is just crushingly expensive right now. So MEHKO could become a really big thing in LA County.”