For greater than a decade, startups have constructed on-line marketplaces in hopes of turning dwelling kitchens into legit meals companies. Sadly, for many of that point, whereas demand existed, the rules allowing these companies didn’t.
The primary severe try got here greater than a decade in the past with Josephine, a startup that gave dwelling cooks a platform to promote meals on to customers. Josephine raised greater than $2 million, attracted a loyal consumer base, and helped popularize the concept dwelling cooking might turn out to be a market. However in 2018, the corporate shut down.
“We now have merely run out of the assets to proceed to drive the legislative change, enterprise innovation, and broader cultural shift wanted to construct Josephine,” CEO Charley Wang wrote on the time.
Josephine’s failure wasn’t about product-market match, however a couple of lack of regulatory coverage. Whereas meals security measures and clearly outlined guidelines are vital to make sure that meals made in folks’s houses is suitable for eating, on the time there was, for essentially the most half, a lack of awareness and a regulatory framework to each shield customers and information these companies. That hole in the end doomed Josephine and created an uphill battle for those who adopted.
Cottage meals legal guidelines various extensively throughout states, inspections had been expensive, and regulatory progress was sluggish. Whilst California debated what would turn out to be AB 626, the invoice that in the end created Microenterprise Residence Kitchen Operations, or MEHKOs, different states lagged behind.
Over time, rules started to evolve, partially resulting from advocacy from platform builders and neighborhood leaders who noticed a chance. In California, AB 626 was handed in 2018 after years of labor by organizations just like the Cook dinner Alliance, making a authorized pathway for dwelling cooks to promote freshly ready meals from their main residence. Since then, MEHKOs have expanded slowly however steadily. A current Cook dinner Alliance report discovered that MEHKOs have exceptionally low grievance charges, sturdy meals security information, and are disproportionately operated by ladies, immigrants, and folks of coloration.
In a 2024 article, The New York Occasions documented the shift in Riverside County and Los Angeles, the place dwelling kitchens can now function as authorized eating places, serving all the things from takeout to yard dine-in meals. Nonetheless, whereas MEHKOs work, nationwide the system stays fragmented, extremely native, and tough to scale for each enterprise operators and native municipalities.
That’s the place Paul Gerstenberger believes his startup, Supper at Residence, will help.
Gerstenberger is the founder and CEO of Supper at Residence, a platform that connects diners with dwelling cooks providing non-public, dine-in meals. The corporate, which Gerstenberger cofounded together with his spouse, Celerina Gerstenberger, stays early and largely pre-revenue. For now, Gerstenberger’s focus has been on increasing the variety of hosts on the platform and inspiring states throughout the nation to undertake his new framework.
“It hasn’t been a know-how problem,” Gerstenberger advised me. “It’s been a regulatory problem.”
Earlier than founding Supper at Residence, Gerstenberger labored as a meals inspection specialist within the U.S. Military. Drawing on that have, he developed a MEHKO-style framework centered on inspection readiness quite than scheduled inspections.
“The first pinch level for states doing this has been that they must ship out meals inspectors to every dwelling,” he stated. “By making a pop inspection, the states don’t must create an entire military of meals inspection specialists.”
Below the mannequin Gerstenberger has been sharing with state and native well being departments, dwelling kitchens are topic to shock or short-notice inspections quite than fastened schedules. The concept is to cut back enforcement prices whereas holding kitchens inspection-ready always.
Gerstenberger advised me he has despatched variations of this framework to all 50 states and that components of it are actually into account or adoption in dozens of them. In Hawaii, the place he lives, he factors to current regulatory modifications that enable dwelling cooks to serve meals inside their houses.
“We wrote to the top of well being right here in Hawaii and in addition to our congresswoman,” he stated. “Two weeks in the past, [the inspector] referred to as and stated the legal guidelines have now modified. You are able to do it.”
Supper at Residence itself takes a narrower strategy than Josephine. Fairly than supply or pickup, the platform emphasizes non-public, dine-in meals for small teams, served at a set time with a hard and fast menu.
“Simply think about setting a supper for you and your loved ones,” Gerstenberger stated. “It’s non-public simply to you. You present up on the door on time… all the things’s on the desk.”
The corporate has signed up roughly 900 hosts since mid-2025, pushed partially by viral YouTube movies explaining the idea. Gerstenberger says Supper at House is deliberately constructing its host base earlier than pushing arduous on diner acquisition.
Whereas I’ve at all times thought the cottage meals house represented a doubtlessly thrilling new shared-economy micro-opportunity, there aren’t any ensures of success for both the platforms or the house cooks that use them. As The New York Occasions reported, a major proportion of MEHKO companies shut down inside months resulting from skinny margins or advertising and marketing challenges. Nonetheless, the mixture of decrease regulatory burdens for companies and better income caps for cooks suggests this market might lastly have a shot at working.
MEHKOs are not theoretical. Advocacy teams just like the Cook dinner Alliance proceed to push for change, and Gerstenberger and Supper at Residence consider they’ve a method to assist make the mannequin work for each state well being companies and residential cooks.
You possibly can see my full interview with Paul Gerstenberger beneath.
