LA County home cooks can start serving meals. What you should know for food safety

Your next meal might come from inside a stranger’s private home.

Health permits for home chefs are being issued starting Friday, which allows them to sell cooked meals from their kitchens to customers in most of Los Angeles County. The change comes under the L.A. County Department of Public Health’s microenterprise home kitchen operation program (MEHKO).

Here’s what you can expect from home cooks, and how you can tell if they’re approved.

What is a MEHKO?

MEHKOs are considered small-scale, home-based restaurants. The program authorizes residents to prepare, cook, and serve potentially hazardous foods (like meat and chicken). Everything has to be made and sold that same day — including condiments, sauces, and beverages — while following health codes.

The program opens doors for a variety of people. Chefs without access to capital can pursue restaurant dreams with lower risks. Clandestine home cooks operating under the radar also have a path toward legitimacy.

Meals can be eaten on-site (meaning at the person’s home), picked up, or delivered directly to you. You won’t see MEHKOs on Uber Eats or DoorDash. Goods must be delivered by someone from the home kitchen, so the state has a list of approved food service intermediaries.

Home cooks from across L.A. County can apply to join, except residents in Pasadena, Long Beach, and Vernon, which have separate health departments that have yet to start local programs. (Long Beach is considering it, though.)

L.A. County took a little longer to adopt the program than other areas. California added the program to its health code in 2019, the first to do it in the country, but as an opt-in choice. More than a dozen places in California have started MEHKO programs so far.

How do I know if a MEHKO is approved?

There are a couple of quick ways to tell. Approved home cooks are required to display their permits (or a legible copy) during business hours in places like the dining or pick-up area.

You can also visit the county public health website to see inspection results and a shortlist of approved MEHKOs.

Cooks aren’t allowed to put signs outside advertising that they have a permitted home kitchen — the county ordinance specifically prohibits that. They can advertise in other ways, like through social media or newsletters. MEHKO advertisements have to include these specific points:

• The name of the local enforcement agency that issued the permit
• The permit number
• A line saying  “Made in a Home Kitchen”

Only one home restaurant can operate per residence.

What about food safety?

Approved home cooks are exempt from the grading system, so you won’t see that blue “A” grade in the window.

They do get inspected for the initial permit process and then once per year after that. It could be more if complaints crop up.

Menus and equipment have to be approved. They aren’t required to use commercial-grade tools or supplies, but everything needs to be kept clean and stored in a sanitary manner.

All food preparation, packaging, and handling has to be kept separate from “domestic activities,” like cooking a family dinner or washing those dishes.

Home cooks must pass an accredited food safety exam for managers as part of the permitting process. Any employees, including family members who help out, must also have a food handler’s card.

MEHKOs may sell store-bought ice cream, cheese, and milk products that are pasteurized. But otherwise, they can’t prepare food or beverages that involve:

• Raw milk or raw milk products
• Raw bottled juice from home
• Raw oysters
• Food processes that require a hazard analysis plan, such as cured meats, shellfish, and preservation techniques 

Home cooks are capped at selling no more than 30 meals per day or 90 per week. These amounts can go up if home cooks participate in other programs.

For places that fail to get a permit, health department enforcement will start on Jan. 1, 2025.