4 ms·

With AirBnB, you can pretty quickly assess the quality and safety of the apartment or room by reading about the local area, looking at photos of the apartment,

With AirBnB, you can pretty quickly assess the quality and safety of the apartment or room by reading about the local area, looking at photos of the apartment, checking for e.g. smoke detectors upon arrival, etc. If there's a problem with the apartment that the photos don't show, like mould or a terrible smell, you can pick up on this very quickly after arrival and leave to find somewhere else. With Uber, I can check the car has seat belts before we depart, see if there are any big dents in the chassis, etc. If the driver is driving erraticly, I can ask them to stop the car and I can leave. With a sharing-economy-restaurant, there's no way for me to assess how safe the food is to eat. Is this person's fridge at a safe temperature? Do they use a separate cutting board for raw meat or fish? Do they regularly wash their hands? Did they try making their own chilli oil and accidentally culture botulism? Did they use some mouldy peanuts full of aflatoxin? It's much harder to pick up on these things. The first you might know about them is two or three days later when you get sick. These are risks with any restaurant, but with a regular restaurant they are inspected, licensed etc. I eat food prepared by my friends, but I trust my friends implicitly, and my friends aren't financially motivated so aren't incentivised to cut corners. Call me a food safety nit, but the idea of eating food prepared by unlicensed strangers does not seem appealing.

ghaff 11y ago
Like many things related to the (increasingly ill-named) sharing economy, I worry more about how unregulated things work at scale. Someone coming over to my house to cook dinner for me and some friends? I'm not so concerned whether they have taken courses in food safety and have a letter grade from the local health inspector. If they're running a 5 night a week 30 seat unlicensed restaurant? Then I worry more about fridge temperatures and cleanliness.
imaginenore 11y ago
You don't know any of these things about restaurants either. There are tons of dirty restaurants with rats and roaches. Most restaurants have a dozen health violations: http://www.city-data.com/ny-restaurants/index1.html http://www.city-data.com/ny-restaurants/index1.html
beardicus 11y ago
> Call me a food safety nit, but the idea of eating food prepared by unlicensed strangers does not seem appealing. But you just said you do it all the time when your friends cook. Is the only difference the profit motivation? As the article says, this is often more of a hobby than a "real" business... personally, I'd sooner suspect a restaurant – with their notoriously thin margins – to cut corners. I think with a decent reputation system (word of mouth, or some established online source) I'd be comfortable taking a chance at one of these establishments.
- bilbo0s 11y ago
  To be fair to the original commenter... a friend is not a stranger. You know and trust your friends. (Presumably.)
  - beardicus 11y ago
    > a friend is not a stranger That's true... somehow I completely overlooked that word in the original post. Still: there are certainly some friends of mine where I'd rather eat the food of a stranger any day of the week.
- striking 11y ago
  Yeah, but you have cause to trust your friends. Your friends have accumulated reputation with you, so you have reason to trust them. Not so much with random strangers.
  - collyw 11y ago
    Maybe there is room for a service to provide that. Uber has driver ratings doesn't it?
- Mikeb85 11y ago
  Having worked with plenty of French chefs, most would consider it blasphemy to cut corners. While some do, especially in touristy areas, between the Michelin guide, Gault-Millau, le Fooding and the recent 'Fait Maison' movement its easier than ever to find a decent place to eat in Paris. Furthermore, cooking is a real profession in France, with a solid training system in place. I can count the amount of bad meals I've had in France on one hand (actually, only 1 was truly bad).
xlm1717 11y ago
I would say your friends are just as financially motivated to cut corners as a restaurant. They have to spend (and save) money making food too.
- relaxatorium 11y ago
  If your friends, such as they are, don't have more motivation than the average person to not kill you with ill-prepared food, then you should think about getting better friends.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    If you think ill prepared food will have easy time killing you - you have not done your homework. It is hard to get sick. Salmonella - 1/20000 eggs. Beef/pork - sterile inside, parasites are virtually eliminated from the commercial pork, so only charring on the surface is needed. Salmon - anisakis cannot pass the intestine barrier anyway. Any food that has been brought to boil/pressure cooker - safe.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - xlm1717 11y ago
    According to CDC estimates 48 million people each year get sick from foodborne illnesses, only 3000 die. That amounts to (much) less than a 1% chance your friend will kill you (even when you get sick), so you can relax, relaxatorium. http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foodborne-germs.html http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foodborne-germs.html
jasode 11y ago
>Call me a food safety nit, but the idea of eating food prepared by unlicensed strangers does not seem appealing. I'm germophobic nut. At public bathrooms, I'll take one last paper towel to wrap around the door handle and open it as I leave because in my mind, the door and faucets have more germs than the toilet seat. That said, I have no fear of eating meals cooked by strangers. That sort of thing happens all the time. The last-minute party crashing at unknown host during college. Or coworkers (many strangers, not all friends) bring potluck to the office party. I've worked the kitchens at restaurants and I don't hold the government licensing and regular inspections as something that puts my mind at ease. I'm not discounting your opinion or apprehensiveness about the underground restaurant model. However, I'm fascinated that we assign different degrees of risk to it.
venomsnake 11y ago
Take volume one of modernist cuisine. Learn how even the sloppiest handled and prepared food is absurdly safe. Calm down.
- jagermo 11y ago
  And then keep reading and try to figure out how to pay for a packet and a chamber sealer while hiding it from the wife/girlfriend. Such a fantastic book about cooking.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    My diabolic plan is to buy them pre girlfriend/wife (along with some quality japanese knives) and then seduce her with food :P
morganvachon 11y ago
> With a sharing-economy-restaurant, there's no way for me to assess how safe the food is to eat. And a once-yearly inspection that is announced with plenty of notice to the restaurants to clean up their act makes you feel safer? I've been to restaurants with a 100% health score and yet there's rat feces on the floor and dirty silverware. I for one would feel much better about eating in someone's home, especially if the home is immaculate. Obviously if you walk into a home chef's house and it's filthy, you'd be stupid to eat there, and it's the same with a restaurant. > Is this person's fridge at a safe temperature? Do they use a separate cutting board for raw meat or fish? Do they regularly wash their hands? Did they try making their own chilli oil and accidentally culture botulism? Did they use some mouldy peanuts full of aflatoxin? Call me crazy, but I feel safer eating at a chef's house than out of a perfectly legal streetside food truck. I'm an amateur cook on the level of many contestants on the show "Master Chef", and I follow strict personal guidelines for clean and safe cooking even though it's just for me and my family. If anything, I am more strict on myself when cooking for strangers, not less. An actual chef (read: trained and licensed, unlike me) should have even higher standards, so I don't see the issue from a health and safety point of view. No, just like the taxi lobbies and Lyft/Uber/Sidecar, this is a consumer-friendly disruption of the old guard, and they are choosing to litigate instead of competing on their merits.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
kafkaesq 11y ago
The idea of eating food prepared by unlicensed strangers does not seem appealing. Then... license them. It's just a regulatory glitch that they currently aren't licensed; not a sign of something fundamentally wrong with the underlying business model.
- Mikeb85 11y ago
  You can't though. A home isn't a restaurant, and can't be one because it's not in a commercially zoned area, nor is a home kitchen nearly as sanitary as a restaurant kitchen, due to the building materials. Not to mention fire code (commercial kitchens have a proper fire suppression system). It's considered 'underground' because it's strait up illegal given the various other laws concerning business and food preparation. You can't just scrap every law to accommodate something that's become trendy unless you're prepared for neighbourhoods and apartment buildings to all become commercial zones and allow other forms of home businesses...
collyw 11y ago
My girlfirend takes those risks most nights of the week when I cook.

ghaff 11y ago

Like many things related to the (increasingly ill-named) sharing economy, I worry more about how unregulated things work at scale. Someone coming over to my house to cook dinner for me and some friends? I'm not so concerned whether they have taken courses in food safety and have a letter grade from the local health inspector. If they're running a 5 night a week 30 seat unlicensed restaurant? Then I worry more about fridge temperatures and cleanliness.

imaginenore 11y ago

You don't know any of these things about restaurants either. There are tons of dirty restaurants with rats and roaches. Most restaurants have a dozen health violations: http://www.city-data.com/ny-restaurants/index1.html http://www.city-data.com/ny-restaurants/index1.html

beardicus 11y ago

> Call me a food safety nit, but the idea of eating food prepared by unlicensed strangers does not seem appealing. But you just said you do it all the time when your friends cook. Is the only difference the profit motivation? As the article says, this is often more of a hobby than a "real" business... personally, I'd sooner suspect a restaurant – with their notoriously thin margins – to cut corners. I think with a decent reputation system (word of mouth, or some established online source) I'd be comfortable taking a chance at one of these establishments.

bilbo0s 11y ago
To be fair to the original commenter... a friend is not a stranger. You know and trust your friends. (Presumably.)
- beardicus 11y ago
  > a friend is not a stranger That's true... somehow I completely overlooked that word in the original post. Still: there are certainly some friends of mine where I'd rather eat the food of a stranger any day of the week.
striking 11y ago
Yeah, but you have cause to trust your friends. Your friends have accumulated reputation with you, so you have reason to trust them. Not so much with random strangers.
- collyw 11y ago
  Maybe there is room for a service to provide that. Uber has driver ratings doesn't it?
Mikeb85 11y ago
Having worked with plenty of French chefs, most would consider it blasphemy to cut corners. While some do, especially in touristy areas, between the Michelin guide, Gault-Millau, le Fooding and the recent 'Fait Maison' movement its easier than ever to find a decent place to eat in Paris. Furthermore, cooking is a real profession in France, with a solid training system in place. I can count the amount of bad meals I've had in France on one hand (actually, only 1 was truly bad).

xlm1717 11y ago

I would say your friends are just as financially motivated to cut corners as a restaurant. They have to spend (and save) money making food too.

relaxatorium 11y ago
If your friends, such as they are, don't have more motivation than the average person to not kill you with ill-prepared food, then you should think about getting better friends.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  If you think ill prepared food will have easy time killing you - you have not done your homework. It is hard to get sick. Salmonella - 1/20000 eggs. Beef/pork - sterile inside, parasites are virtually eliminated from the commercial pork, so only charring on the surface is needed. Salmon - anisakis cannot pass the intestine barrier anyway. Any food that has been brought to boil/pressure cooker - safe.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- xlm1717 11y ago
  According to CDC estimates 48 million people each year get sick from foodborne illnesses, only 3000 die. That amounts to (much) less than a 1% chance your friend will kill you (even when you get sick), so you can relax, relaxatorium. http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foodborne-germs.html http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foodborne-germs.html

jasode 11y ago

>Call me a food safety nit, but the idea of eating food prepared by unlicensed strangers does not seem appealing. I'm germophobic nut. At public bathrooms, I'll take one last paper towel to wrap around the door handle and open it as I leave because in my mind, the door and faucets have more germs than the toilet seat. That said, I have no fear of eating meals cooked by strangers. That sort of thing happens all the time. The last-minute party crashing at unknown host during college. Or coworkers (many strangers, not all friends) bring potluck to the office party. I've worked the kitchens at restaurants and I don't hold the government licensing and regular inspections as something that puts my mind at ease. I'm not discounting your opinion or apprehensiveness about the underground restaurant model. However, I'm fascinated that we assign different degrees of risk to it.

venomsnake 11y ago

Take volume one of modernist cuisine. Learn how even the sloppiest handled and prepared food is absurdly safe. Calm down.

jagermo 11y ago
And then keep reading and try to figure out how to pay for a packet and a chamber sealer while hiding it from the wife/girlfriend. Such a fantastic book about cooking.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  My diabolic plan is to buy them pre girlfriend/wife (along with some quality japanese knives) and then seduce her with food :P

morganvachon 11y ago

> With a sharing-economy-restaurant, there's no way for me to assess how safe the food is to eat. And a once-yearly inspection that is announced with plenty of notice to the restaurants to clean up their act makes you feel safer? I've been to restaurants with a 100% health score and yet there's rat feces on the floor and dirty silverware. I for one would feel much better about eating in someone's home, especially if the home is immaculate. Obviously if you walk into a home chef's house and it's filthy, you'd be stupid to eat there, and it's the same with a restaurant. > Is this person's fridge at a safe temperature? Do they use a separate cutting board for raw meat or fish? Do they regularly wash their hands? Did they try making their own chilli oil and accidentally culture botulism? Did they use some mouldy peanuts full of aflatoxin? Call me crazy, but I feel safer eating at a chef's house than out of a perfectly legal streetside food truck. I'm an amateur cook on the level of many contestants on the show "Master Chef", and I follow strict personal guidelines for clean and safe cooking even though it's just for me and my family. If anything, I am more strict on myself when cooking for strangers, not less. An actual chef (read: trained and licensed, unlike me) should have even higher standards, so I don't see the issue from a health and safety point of view. No, just like the taxi lobbies and Lyft/Uber/Sidecar, this is a consumer-friendly disruption of the old guard, and they are choosing to litigate instead of competing on their merits.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

kafkaesq 11y ago

The idea of eating food prepared by unlicensed strangers does not seem appealing. Then... license them. It's just a regulatory glitch that they currently aren't licensed; not a sign of something fundamentally wrong with the underlying business model.

Mikeb85 11y ago
You can't though. A home isn't a restaurant, and can't be one because it's not in a commercially zoned area, nor is a home kitchen nearly as sanitary as a restaurant kitchen, due to the building materials. Not to mention fire code (commercial kitchens have a proper fire suppression system). It's considered 'underground' because it's strait up illegal given the various other laws concerning business and food preparation. You can't just scrap every law to accommodate something that's become trendy unless you're prepared for neighbourhoods and apartment buildings to all become commercial zones and allow other forms of home businesses...

collyw 11y ago

My girlfirend takes those risks most nights of the week when I cook.