A new kind of permit allows food entrepreneurs to turn a home kitchen into a small-scale restaurant.

Your mother’s tamale recipe, grandmother’s spaghetti bolognese, uncle’s pho broth. For all home chefs who have ever been told “this is so good, you should start a restaurant” – here’s an opportunity to try just that, and it’s more accessible than you might think.

On Sept. 19, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors voted to opt in to Assembly Bill 626. That bill, which was signed into law on Sept. 18, 2018 and went into effect on Feb. 1, 2019, enables the creation of Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations (MEHKO) – a new kind of retail food facility, operated out of a home kitchen, where the resident/chef may store, handle, prepare and even serve food to customers on site.

In essence, this means any private home can now become a small-scale restaurant offering most any kind of food for pick-up, delivery or dine-in.

The main benefit to a MEHKO is that it greatly expands the variety of food that can be legally prepared and sold when compared to the existing home-kitchen-turned-business law: California’s Cottage Food Act. The Cottage Food Act, which took effect Jan. 1, 2013, permits only a short list of items that the Health Department calls “nonhazardous food items” for their distinction as being pretty much foolproof when it comes to food safety: nuts, dried fruit, baked goods without custard fillings, vinegar, mustard, popcorn, coffee, tea and spices. Essentially items that are shelf-stable – or at least won’t go bad too easily or quickly.

A MEHKO permit opens up the possibility to sell hot, prepared food. But not everything is fair game – raw oysters and raw milk are among the items that a MEHKO cannot serve. MEHKOs are also limited to no more than 30 individual meals per day (and 90 per week), no more than $100,000 in annual revenue and no more than one full-time employee (not including the home’s resident and/or family members). And no alcohol allowed.

“The intent is to allow mom-and-pop food businesses to enter the business, and do so in a safe manner,” says Armando Gonzalez, supervisor for consumer protection services in the County of Monterey Health Department. Gonzalez says the Health Department first brought this new regulatory possibility to the Board of Supervisors just before the Covid pandemic began, but the onset of that public health emergency (understandably) pushed the issue to the backburner. Since September, though, he says his office has received dozens of calls from potential MEHKO operators seeking more information – people interested in making and selling things like menudo and pozole, tacos, hamburgers, etc.

To start a microenterprise home kitchen, a would-be operator must submit a health permit application and a standard operating procedure – including information on what kind of food you’ll serve, how it will be prepared and what days/times your kitchen will be open – to the Health Department. The kitchen in question will then be subject to an on-site inspection, a process Gonzalez acknowledges is a little different, given that it means health inspectors are entering a person’s private home. Inspectors will not access any areas of the home other than what has been identified as part of the business’ operations, he says – they’re looking for proper hand-washing protocols, correct temperatures for storing and maintaining food, and systems in place to avoid cross-contamination of ingredients. Home kitchens do not have to meet commercial-grade requirements, but they do need to demonstrate the ability to keep cooked food hot before serving (above 135 degrees) and refrigerated ingredients appropriately cold. “The main focus here is food safety,” Gonzalez says.

Assuming the kitchen passes inspection, the business will receive a permit valid for one year for $588.

The Health Department has not yet received any applications for a MEHKO, in part due to a payment processing software snafu that means the office is not yet accepting completed applications. Once that is fixed (by Nov. 6), Gonzalez admits he has no idea how many applications his office might receive. Will local home chefs jump at the opportunity to turn their kitchens into a business? Only time will tell.

To learn more about MICROENTERPRISE HOME KITCHEN OPERATIONS in Monterey County, and to obtain an application, visit bit.ly/MontereyMEHKO