A 'Dining Revolution' Comes Home

Farley Elliott reports on the effects of AB 626, approved in 2018 to amend the California Retail Food Code to allow microenterprise home kitchens. 

The text of AB 626, authored by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) reads as follows. 

This bill would, among other things, include a microenterprise home kitchen operation within the definition of a food facility, and would define a microenterprise home kitchen operation to mean a food facility that is operated by a resident in a private home where food is stored, handled, and prepared for, and may be served to, consumers, and that meets specified requirements, including, among others, that the operation has no more than one full-time equivalent food employee and has no more than $50,000 in verifiable gross annual sales. 

Here's how Farley explains the bill:

The newly implemented regulation allows anyone to run a licensed restaurant out of their home kitchen and dining room. No commercial space, no food truck, no ghost kitchen, and no staff is needed — just pull some local permits to get certified by the Riverside County public health office.

According to Farley, AB 626 is having an effect in the Inland Empire, where businesses and residents are hustling to make ends meet, and potentially spurring a dining revolution precisely when it's needed most. 

Between stay-at-home mandates, high unemployment, and the still-raging coronavirus pandemic, the entrepreneurial opportunities presented by AB-626 could mean tens of thousands of dollars in the hands of local chefs who feed their communities the food they most want to eat.

Farley explores the city of Riverside County for examples like Barra de Pan in Corona, run by Lucy SIlva and family. The article also includes details about the work of developers in delivering the tech platforms to enable the dining revolution.