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The classic example would be food companies requiring the use of a commercial kitchen for selling food to the general public. There are a lot of fledgling busin

by pg_bot 8y ago

The classic example would be food companies requiring the use of a commercial kitchen for selling food to the general public. There are a lot of fledgling businesses that have been shut down immediately because they cannot build capital while they are still in their cottage stage. While it is perfectly fine to invite my neighbors over and cook for them, it immediately crosses the line when I want to sell to them. I think it would be smarter to have progressive laws based on the number of servings instead of immediate high barriers to entry. So you still need to use a commercial kitchen, but only once you serve more than say 5,000 customers per annum. I think most people would believe that this is reasonable. There are countless industries that I think should have similar cottage exceptions.

xvedejas 8y ago
I'm not sure why you even need to accept the premise. Why is using a non-commercial kitchen sleazy? Such a regulation doesn't make much sense to me for either small or large businesses.
- DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
  The regulation exists to keep people safe. Poorly handled foods kill people. Now, if there are high capital requirements for starting a restaurant, it sounds like there is a market opportunity for someone to make a low-capital way to try out restaurant concepts. That's sort of what has happened with food trucks. In Austin, many storefront restaurants existed as food trucks first. Presumably, they got to see that they were a hit without having to spend a ton up front.
  - xvedejas 8y ago
    I'm still not following. Is it harder to mishandle food in a commercial kitchen? Why is the regulation against non-commercial kitchens, and not just against mishandling of food, if that's the issue?
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >Is it harder to mishandle food in a commercial kitchen Not really. The main difference is that everything you use is better designed to be easy to clean and hard to break by someone putting in less than minimum effort. For a small business that isn't being lazy to the point of negligence there's really no difference. The same standard of cleanliness is indeed possible in a noncommercial kitchen but beyond a certain scale it's not cost effective. Also, it's not a binary thing. You have tons of hole in the wall restaurants that use a mix of commercial and noncommercial facilities and equipment. Somewhere that serves ice cream will probably have commercial style freezers and mid-high end consumer grade stuff for everything else. You don't need stainless counters to prepare ice cream and you don't need a three bay sink or a commercial dishwasher to clean ice cream scoops. Bars in places where they're forced to serve food by law often only have consumer grade equipment for the preparation of said food.

by pg_bot 8y ago

xvedejas 8y ago

I'm not sure why you even need to accept the premise. Why is using a non-commercial kitchen sleazy? Such a regulation doesn't make much sense to me for either small or large businesses.

DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
The regulation exists to keep people safe. Poorly handled foods kill people. Now, if there are high capital requirements for starting a restaurant, it sounds like there is a market opportunity for someone to make a low-capital way to try out restaurant concepts. That's sort of what has happened with food trucks. In Austin, many storefront restaurants existed as food trucks first. Presumably, they got to see that they were a hit without having to spend a ton up front.
- xvedejas 8y ago
  I'm still not following. Is it harder to mishandle food in a commercial kitchen? Why is the regulation against non-commercial kitchens, and not just against mishandling of food, if that's the issue?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >Is it harder to mishandle food in a commercial kitchen Not really. The main difference is that everything you use is better designed to be easy to clean and hard to break by someone putting in less than minimum effort. For a small business that isn't being lazy to the point of negligence there's really no difference. The same standard of cleanliness is indeed possible in a noncommercial kitchen but beyond a certain scale it's not cost effective. Also, it's not a binary thing. You have tons of hole in the wall restaurants that use a mix of commercial and noncommercial facilities and equipment. Somewhere that serves ice cream will probably have commercial style freezers and mid-high end consumer grade stuff for everything else. You don't need stainless counters to prepare ice cream and you don't need a three bay sink or a commercial dishwasher to clean ice cream scoops. Bars in places where they're forced to serve food by law often only have consumer grade equipment for the preparation of said food.