Starting Nov. 1, people in L.A. County will be able to legally sell home-cooked meals.
Nearby, Riverside County has permitted home restaurants like these for the past five years.
But what happens when home kitchens are turned into takeout joints?
Meet the New Home Kitchen Business
Meet the New Home Kitchen Business
Meghan McCarron has covered food and restaurants in the greater Los Angeles area for nearly 10 years. For this story, she visited home restaurants all over Riverside County, Calif. This is the second in a series from Headway about kitchens in Los Angeles that have reflected and inspired changes in the city.
What accomplished home cook hasn’t fantasized about opening a restaurant? Usually, that fantasy fizzles right at the point where hundreds of thousands of dollars are needed to sign a lease.
But a 2019 California law makes the path to having a full-fledged business surprisingly short.
In certain counties, the health department can certify a private home as a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO), and, within a month or two, hopeful entrepreneurs can go from cooking for friends and family to bagging up takeout orders and even serving customers in their backyard. Legally.
Cooks without access to capital have long run home food businesses — out of entrepreneurial derring-do, financial need or both — but they’ve had to do so in the shadows. What would it look like — especially in a vast, diverse and vibrant county like Los Angeles — when anyone can open a restaurant in their home?
Riverside County, Calif., in the outer reaches of Greater Los Angeles, was the first to adopt the MEHKO ordinance. Since enacting it in 2019, the county has had an explosion of businesses run out of homes by community members of all sorts. Veteran restaurateurs looking to streamline, seasoned home cooks trying to monetize their skills and aspiring chefs learning the ropes have all jumped in.