Pretty big. Home chefs in LA county can start selling food out of their own homes via the MEHKO permit. It essentially permits home chefs to sell prepped meals commercially using a home kitchen, with less limitations compared to the cottage food business permit. Chefs can now start micro food businesses out of their own homes with less startup cost, before going straight into a commercial license/brick and mortar setup.
Honestly some of the best food I've ever had are from these smaller home operations. Mieve (square pies), Calabama (her bfast sandos), Nish Noosh (insane GF Babka)
Edit: NYTimes just came out w this article on LA MEHKOs
by rishi-eats
29 Comments
Oh. I didn’t know this was illegal before. I moved to USA in late 2022 and have been buying large amount of my Chinese food from Wx/Line/FB this whole time
I love supporting people who are just running their business out of a cart on the street but I also recently saw a guy running a hamburger stand in Venice on the sidewalk and he was fully smoking a cig with his gloves on, like 3 feet from his grill.
Gave me pause about buying from just anyone on the street. Also, makes me trepidatious about what standards people have inside their homes with 0 oversight.
Inland Empire has been doing the MHKO thing for a while now. Haven’t had a bad tamale since I started messing with those. SGV did stuff like that with dumplings during the pandemic too.
For me, the only problems I’ve seen is when they offer seating. Sometimes it gets loud, and I imagine neighbors won’t be a fan of that.
I’m going to put on this central american grandma to this. She makes killer tamales and empanadas.
please don’t make the term “bfast sando” a thing
This has been happening for so long already esp on fb marketplace.
my partner won’t even eat at an office potluck – eating out of some rando’s garage? good luck
One thing that makes me concerned is the condition of their home. I’m reminded of a woman who used to bake a lot of cookies, cakes, pastries, etc and bring them to the office. Amazing and tasty stuff. One day I had to drop off some papers for her to sign and she invited me in. My jaw dropped at how messy she was and the number of animals running around. She was the ultimate cat lady and it smelled like the litter boxes hadn’t been cleaned and cat urine smell just overwhelming. I didn’t touch anything she brought to the office ever again.
That said I do occasionally buy tamales from a couple at the local laundromat
Seems like Pepto and Imodium sales are also about to turn up.
Glad they’re going to legalize this. IG has quite a few chefs who sell food out of their house as is. Let the games begin and see who can compete the most with their food.
Bubble guts and cat dander
People are hustling and I respect that however what becomes of the brick and mortar restaurants? This takes business away from them and the staff that run these businesses.
Been doing this in the hood
Mexicans be reading like…wtf…”meko permit”? “Gross”.
And Also lol
This will help property values and parking, I’m pumped
How are they going to enforce cleanliness? We gonna see a rating on a person’s front door?
Is this what that dude that serves that great African (I think) food out of his condo uses? I still need to go there (it would help if I remembered the name).
I wouldn’t want my friend to do this, her cats’ favourite place to sit is on her wooden chopping block, and she doesn’t even ATTEMPT to clean it before using… 🤢🤢🤢
Eww… gross. This is a news story waiting to happen. Lol
yay but also hmmm… idk it’s already hard enough to regulate peoples food handling in a commercial kitchen let alone ther own home kitchen !!
Idk yall they better at LEAST need a food manager certification or card
Rolling back the clock on food safety. Lovely.
LA is turning into a real bizzaro land.
Bangkok belly, Los Angeles style.
Eh. I will not be eating from home kitchens.
Can’t wait for the corps to come in and start turning homes into restaurants, making that air bnb party house even worse, parking and littering about to get much worse around your home.
Love me some dog hair in my food
I had a hard enough time thinking about eating food people brought to potlucks at work, no less buying from home kitchens.
Ew, no.
Some people are about to turn their backyards into 24-hour smokers for a barbecue business and their neighbors are going to get smoked out of existence
No thank you. Knowing how nasty most people are in their homes im not taking chances unless they are super well known and a full restaurant style operation going on.