It is now a little easier to start a small-scale food business in Contra Costa County.
Starting in July, Contra Costa Health began issuing a new type of permit for home-based restaurants to serve dine-in, delivery and takeout meals. Officials hope the new permit will encourage entrepreneurs while ensuring public health and safety.
The county plans to host a series of workshops to go over the process, including at the Shields-Reid Community Center in Richmond before the end of the year.
The new permits are the latest push to support what are called Micro Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations – or MEHKOs. Those operations have been legal in California since 2019, after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure into law allowing people to sell food they’ve cooked in their home kitchens directly to the public.
The law is an attempt to level the playing field for food entrepreneurs who cannot afford the expenses of a brick-and-mortar restaurant. As the restaurant industry struggled during the pandemic, home restaurants popped up around the Bay Area.
Kristian Lucas, the director of environmental health for Contra Costa County, said the new permits encourage businesses to come out of the shadows.
“The restaurant industry itself is very fickle, not many businesses survive,” Lucas said. “Folks don’t have to get a commercial restaurant or kitchen space in order to make food. They can make the same sort of dishes that you can find in a restaurant, but just in their home”
Several other Bay Area counties already offer similar permits, including Alameda, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Solano.
Before this system, the county would only permit commercial brick-and-mortar establishments, which would require entrepreneurs to rent, purchase, or lease space, and furnish the space with equipment. Micro-enterprise home kitchens can offer many of the same services as brick-and-mortar spots, but with some caveats, Lucas said.
Home kitchens can only serve 30 meals per day, or 90 meals per week, and earn no more than $100,000 in gross annual sales. Home kitchens also cannot sell homemade ice cream or raw oysters.
The permits to operate a home kitchen are $696 dollars for the first year, Lucas said, effective from March through February the following year at a proratable rate. Those without the required permits can face fines of three times that amount.
As part of the permitting process, the county conducts reviews of the space and evaluates basic food safety operations, like whether workers are washing hands properly and keeping pets away from the food preparation areas.
“We’re hopeful that this is going to provide healthy, home cooked foods in areas where those options are limited,” Lucas said. “That’s our real hope. We’re trying our best to not hinder that process, to not be the break in the chain that makes folks wait longer than they need to.”
The new permitting process comes soon after the Richmond City Council approved an ordinance last month to regulate sidewalk vendors.
That ordinance is expected to go into effect in August.
