Full disclosure - I do restaurant and small food business consulting for a living. I've been in the food business for 25 years in some capacity or another. I'm not here trying to drum up business or promote my book (a how-to for people who want to get into the food biz inexpensively) and I'm not going to dox myself - I say these things because I want to promise you that I've been there, done that, and know what I'm talking about.I've been seeing a lot of comments lately like "hey, I'm going to start a small ghost kitchen! I'm going to start a food business! All I need is a few thousand bucks!"Is it doable? Yeah - it's not the price that's an issue, but it's that there are so many cooks out there who get really excited about this, not knowing how f'ed they're about to be by massively running afoul of local and state licensing and regulations - most of which are put into place for good reason - no one wants you to make anyone sick, no one wants you to kill anyone.If you're interested in trying to do this from home, well, you've got the deck stacked against you, depending on your business model.To do a cloud kitchen out of your house legally, you'll have to look into your local/state cottage laws. Almost certainly, you won't be able to run delivery out of there, unless you're in certain places in California. (Most states' cottage licenses only extend to selling at farmer's markets, and underneath a certain dollar threshold, with a very specific range of types of products applicable.) If you're lucky enough to live in a spot where you're able to run a food delivery business out of your house, you'll almost certainly be subject to inspection, just like your local restaurants are.If you rent, running a highly visible business out of your house/apartment is almost certainly a violation of your lease.You'll need business insurance to run any sort of food company. Your insurance company not cover you without the correct go-ahead from your local governments. "So what," you say, "I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a rebel, I'm a go-getter!" I hope you don't make anyone sick, as your deliberately uninsured business will rack up thousands of dollars in fines, if you're lucky, but most likely, criminal charges (whoops! You killed someone because you didn't want to get your plan okayed by the local government! Have fun with those manslaughter charges!)Anyways, I say all of this because I see so many people here who are gung-ho about food businesses when they've never opened, operated, or worked in one. They're ignorant to how much red tape there is (do you know that in some places in the United States, when your inspector comes in, if you have a lightbulb out on your line, you can be shut down? Same goes for having a storage rack on wheels blocking a hand sink by an inch. They generally do not fuck around.)I make a living helping newbies open food businesses. I want to encourage it at every opportunity. However, I want to see you all do it the right way, not rush into it, make sure you understand how to keep people safe, and ensure you're not setting yourself up for total disaster down the line.Happy to take questions here (not via DM, please, I'm serious when I say I'm not trying to sell you all anything). see hubwealthy.com/wealthy
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