Permits & Law
What's legal, where, and how to get the permit. County by county.
How to Get a MEHKO Permit in Alameda County: Steps, Cost & Timeline (2026)
Step-by-step guide to getting a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation permit in Alameda County, California — certification, SOP, inspection, fees, and what you can sell once approved.
5 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026How to Get a MEHKO Permit in Santa Clara County: Steps, Cost & Timeline (2026)
Step-by-step guide to getting a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation permit in Santa Clara County, California — certification, SOP, inspection, fees, and what you can sell once approved.
5 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026How to Get a MEHKO Permit in San Mateo County: Steps, Cost & Timeline (2026)
Step-by-step guide to getting a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation permit in San Mateo County, California — certification, SOP, inspection, fees, and what you can sell once approved.
5 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026How to Get a MEHKO Permit in Contra Costa County: Steps, Cost & Timeline (2026)
Step-by-step guide to getting a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation permit in Contra Costa County, California — certification, SOP, inspection, fees, and what you can sell once approved.
5 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026How to Get a MEHKO Permit in Los Angeles County: Steps, Cost & Timeline (2026)
Step-by-step guide to getting a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation permit in Los Angeles County, California — certification, SOP, inspection, fees, and what you can sell once approved.
5 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026Can You Sell Home-Cooked Food in San Francisco? What's Legal in 2026
San Francisco has not opted into California's MEHKO law, so selling meals from a home kitchen isn't permitted in the city yet. Here's what you can sell, and the workarounds SF makers actually use.
4 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026MEHKO vs. Cottage Food vs. Catering License: Which One Do You Actually Need?
A plain comparison of California's three paths to selling food you maker: MEHKO home kitchen permits, Cottage Food permits, and a catering or commissary permit — by what you can sell, cost, limits, and effort.
3 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026Cottage Food Laws by State (2026): Sales Caps, Permits, and Where You Can Sell Actual Meals
Every U.S. state's home food law in one table — annual sales cap, whether a permit is required, and the nine states that let you sell cooked meals (not just baked goods) from a home kitchen.
7 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026What Does a MEHKO Home Kitchen Inspection Check? The Full Checklist
Exactly what a health inspector looks for during a California MEHKO home kitchen inspection — temperatures, handwashing, storage, pets, pests — and how to pass on the first visit.
4 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026For Makers
The money: what you can make, how to price, and what platforms take.
How Much Can You Actually Make Selling Home-Cooked Meals? (Worked Numbers)
Realistic take-home math for a permitted home cook: three scenarios from a weekend side hustle to the MEHKO cap, with ingredient costs, platform fees, and hours worked out.
4 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026Makinson Street vs. Shef vs. DoorDash: What Each Platform Takes From a Home Cook (2026)
Side-by-side fees for home cooks on Makinson Street, Shef, DoorDash, and Uber Eats — commission, payment processing, who's legally allowed to use which, and what a $20 plate actually nets on each.
4 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026How to Price a Home-Cooked Meal: A Formula That Pays You for Your Time
A step-by-step pricing method for home cooks — cost your recipe, set a target food cost, add your labor, check the fees — with a worked example and the mistakes that keep makers underpaid.
4 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026Food Safety for Home Cooks Who Sell: Temperatures, Allergens, and What Customers Actually Ask
The food safety habits that matter when you're cooking for paying customers — the temperature numbers, the FDA top-9 allergens and how to label them, cross-contact, and the questions customers ask most.
5 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026For Customers
How home-cooked meals compare and how the marketplace works.
What Is a Home Kitchen Marketplace? How Buying Dinner From a Permitted Home Cook Works
A plain explanation of home kitchen marketplaces like Makinson Street: what they are, how they're legal, how ordering works, what the maker gets, and how they differ from delivery apps and meal kits.
4 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026Home-Cooked Meals vs. Meal Kits vs. Delivery Apps: Real Cost per Dinner Compared
What a weeknight dinner actually costs from a permitted home cook, a meal kit subscription, a delivery app, and takeout — with the fees, time, and food quality laid out honestly.
4 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026About Us
Who we are and how we check the makers.
How We Verify Every Maker on Makinson Street
What happens between a maker applying and their first listing going live: address-based rules, the credential each path requires, automated document checks with human review as backup, the food-category ceiling, and automatic lapse when a permit expires.
8 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026Why We Started Makinson Street
Makinson Street is a real street in Australia where our nonni lived and nobody sold anything. We built a marketplace for permitted home cooks because that kind of street stopped being normal — and food is the shortest way back.
4 min read · updated Sep 13, 2026