What do you guys think of MEKHOs?

[sopas ej]

Over the past few months, I've been seeing food vloggers on Youtube go to some MEKHOs in the Los Angeles area to review them. MEKHO stands for Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation, and is a small-scale, home-based food business regulated under California law that allows approved cooks to prepare, cook, and sell meals directly to consumers from their private residences. California Assembly Bill 1325 allowed them last year. I have yet to go to one.

So far in the US, only California allows them, and in specific jurisdictions:

-Los Angeles County: Permitted countywide except in Pasadena, Long Beach, and Vernon (cities that have their own health departments)

-Bay Area: Alameda County, Contra Costa County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, and the City of Berkeley

-Southern California: Riverside County and San Diego County

-Central Coast & Valley: Monterey County, San Benito County, Santa Barbara County, Santa Cruz County, Amador County, Imperial County, Lake County, Solano County, and Sonoma County


An article from Afar.com:

These Hot New Eateries Are All Over L.A.—and They’re Not Restaurants, Food Trucks, or Street Stalls

Travel to Los Angeles for Palestinian flatbread, Peruvian beef, and Scandinavian buns in unexpected places.


New laws make eateries like Two Rose unique to L.A.
Photo by Pascal Shirley

Los Angeles has 25 Michelin-starred restaurants, placing it comfortably within the top 15 fine-dining cities in the world by quantity. But this figure doesn’t come close to showing the depth and breadth of its dining scene. Unlike in other American cities, much of L.A.’s best food doesn’t come in traditional restaurants, let alone fine dining establishments. Instead, you’ll find unbelievable meals in ugly 1980s stucco strip malls, at food stalls on the sidewalk in front of a 7-Eleven, or out of a truck in a parking lot. And for the past year, a new addition has joined the scene: legal dining and takeout from regular people’s homes.

Starting last year, the thoroughly informal vibe of Los Angeles eating has seen a change thanks to a niche law called AB 1325, which governs restaurants called MEHKOs: Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations. This law has brought some of Los Angeles’s best restaurants out of the shadows. To be more specific, they’re in the sunny backyards of people’s houses.

MEHKOs are legal food-selling establishments operated out of private homes. Since November 2025, nearly 200 MEHKO licenses have been issued, including a vibey coffee shop in Echo Park, a spot behind a gate in Watts selling musakhan (Palestine’s national dish, a sumac- and caramelized-onion-roasted chicken over taboon flatbread), and a Lakewood backyard where the Peruvian chef fires up lomo saltado in a wok.

[...]


At Granada coffee shop in Echo Park, the couple who live upstairs have opened their living room and courtyard to the public during weekday mornings for coffee, treats, and co-working.
Photo by Talitha Bullock (L); photo by Oscar Mendoza (R)


At Bun Bun Bakery, customers pick up their orders from the garden in a basket lowered directly from the kitchen window.
Photo by Elli Lauren (L); photo by Sofia Draco (R)


David Wilcox serves some of the best sourdough pizza from his house, at a MEHKO called Two Rose.
Photo by Pascal Shirley

[mhays]

Part of me likes the idea at first glance.

It seems like a workaround for a lack of retail space vs. the population size. That could be a positive workaround for a bad situation.

De facto restaurants and shops in otherwise quiet places are rightfully controversial -- lots of good, but also potential noise, trash, etc.

Do the rules extend to packaged food production? Can someone make cookies or juice to sell at festivals for example, vs. renting a commercial kitchen once a week?

We don't allow anything like this in my area. Seattle recently liberalized the rules about businesses in single-family areas (they have to be small and close by 10:00), but the state hasn't passed any mandates. More importantly this sounds like it's more about food safety in non-commercial spaces, and we have nothing like that.

[llamaorama]

I guess in Texas and in the South sometimes people would sell "plates" from home and it would be what it sounds like. And then just about anywhere you have people selling baked goods from home. Always such a small scale activity that it never attracted scrutiny.

I remember watching a cable TV show in the 2000s on food network, it was probably something with Anthony Bourdain, talking about Seattle or SF having chefs host fancy dinner parties out of private homes that total strangers would pay to attend, and that this was technically illegal but the rules weren't enforced.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

I guess in Texas and in the South sometimes people would sell "plates" from home and it would be what it sounds like.

Yeah, and not just in the South... black folks have been selling plates forever. And not just black folks... people of all ethnic backgrounds have a version of this.

But hey, let's crash the party, establish rules to regulate the hell out of it, call it MEHKOs: Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations, and fuck it all up for everybody.

[ColDayMan]

Yeah, this seems very "Bo Derek discovered braids."

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yeah, and not just in the South... black folks have been selling plates forever. And not just black folks... people of all ethnic backgrounds have a version of this.

But hey, let's crash the party, establish rules to regulate the hell out of it, call it MEHKOs: Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations, and fuck it all up for everybody.

I don't think of it so much as "being regulated the hell out of it" as it is legalizing it.

I understand how it's ok selling low-risk/non-perishable things from your home like baked goods and homemade candy, but selling hot plates of food or whole meals from your home is another thing, being that it's illegal and it's basically selling meals on the black market/underground. MEKHOs would just make it legal, and even expands it by making it legally possible to charge people and serve diners at your home instead of selling meals just for takeout.

The verbiage of the law is very specific; meals must be sold to customers directly and for direct consumption, and not sold to wholesalers or retailers.
A ‘meal’ refers to the amount or quantity of food intended to be consumed by one customer in a single sitting. A meal may include one or more of the following:

-A main dish

-Appetizers

-Side dishes

-Beverages

-Baked goods

-Desserts

This definition, clarified by the 2023 legislation AB 1325 passed by COOK Alliance, ensures that MEHKOs can specialize in selling only desserts, beverages, or other specific items—there is no requirement for a meal to include every type of dish.

The amount of food that constitutes a single meal will vary depending on the type of food being served and the customer. For example, a meal for one customer might be three tamales, while for another, a single tamale could be considered a meal.

I think it's a cool idea for restaurant entrepreneurs to give them a taste of what it's like if they want to start their own brick-and-mortar restaurants, and a way for them to make a little extra income in the meantime.

Here's a short video about a MEKHO in a suburb of LA (Lakewood); I actually wouldn't mind checking this place out, I LOVE Peruvian food:
• Video Link

Here's a local news stories about a MEKHO in LA County:
• Video Link


Here's a map of LA County MEHKOs; not sure how current it is: https://mehkomap.github.io/mehko/

[craigs]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Here's a map of LA County MEHKOs; not sure how current it is: https://mehkomap.github.io/mehko/

I found one roughly 325 feet from my front door: "Chicago-style meats and deli sandwiches from a home kitchen."

I really don't like the acronym "MEHKO," though. "Home kitchen" sounds better.

[xzmattzx]

This is as good of a thread as any that will ever exist on here to tell everyone that I once bought a beer from a 10 year old from his cooler on the front stoop while walking to the Eagles' first Super Bowl parade.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

This is as good of a thread as any that will ever exist on here to tell everyone that I once bought a beer from a 10 year old from his cooler on the front stoop while walking to the Eagles' first Super Bowl parade.

Gawd, I love Philly.