It occurs to me that x-sharing startups in the mold of Airbnb/Uber may be most likely to overcome their regulatory challenges not through litigation or lobbying, but simply due to more of them popping up and the increased likelihood that the average person knows someone who has benefitted ("my friend's daughter who paid her way through law school driving for Uber", "my cousin the line cook who was offered the opportunity of a pop-up run at an established restaurant after a few successful months on Cozymeal", etc.)
Also, I wonder if Cozymeal might find opportunities on the operations/materials side of this equation. I know that e.g. sourcing and selecting ingredients is frequently a very personal experience for chefs and restauranteurs, but I can't help but think there could be some upside to facilitating volume pricing of certain ingredients for members within a particular region, not unlike how members of hobbyist electronics groups will organize group buys of components. If ingredients are a bridge too far, they might apply the same logic to more practical items—flatware, napkins, menus, and so forth.
> It occurs to me that x-sharing startups in the mold of Airbnb/Uber may be most likely to overcome their regulatory challenges not through litigation or lobbying, but simply due to more of them popping up and the increased likelihood that the average person knows someone who has benefitted
I think there's something sublime about that. It seems the technology drives culture in many ways and it happens when an innovation goes viral and benefits people faster than the law can react.
Some technologies don't get the chance to do that. People see harms before they can feel the benefits and start to turn public opinion and law against the innovation. Segway's and Google Glass are in that category, I think.
What about zoning restrictions? Food service licenses? In many places, if you prepare food for sale to be consumed onsite, you are treated like a restaurant - most home kitchens aren't going to pass local health department requirements.
Many great new ideas aren't legal. Use your own car like a taxi? Rent your spare bedroom to strangers? Sell electric cars direct, without a dealer? Share music, books and movies with your friends? Run a mesh network in your city to bypass the local monopoly? Trade cryptocurrency for national currency?
Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it's not a killer idea.
In the case of unsanitary food preparation, it very well could be a killer idea.
By the way, none of those other ideas are illegal (in the US). Taxi drivers can own their own cabs; some do but most do not due to the expense of acquiring/maintaining an adequate vehicle. It's always been okay to rent your "spare bedroom" to strangers--just as long as you occupy the remainder of the unit (though whether your lease or HOA agreement allows this is a separate issue). Sharing your physical copy of an artistic work has always been allowed. Private mesh networks have never been illegal. Cryptocurrencies are legal forms of exchange (or in this context, "consideration") between two consenting private parties, just like any other form of property.
Sure, but it does likely mean that hosts should expect some surprise visits from the local health department and likely fines, because it certainly does require at least a temporary food permit. Here are the relevant San Francisco requirements: http://www.sfdph.org/dph/EH/Food/Permits/PopUps.asp
My guess is that Facebook (or some other nearly ubiquitous account) will always be a requirement for this site since it's all about inviting people into your home.
Thank you for your comments and interest in Cozymeal. I am the co-founder of Cozymeal, which we launched three months ago. What started as a side project attracted a lot of interest and I am now working full-time on it.
The quality of the food and the experience in general are very important to us. Every host has to go through a vetting process before he can join our site.
Our guests use Cozymeal for the great food but also the amazing experience they get in terms of meeting new people and enjoying delicious food in a nice ambience without the unpleasant noise and rush you often have in restaurants.
Recently, some of our hosts started offering cooking classes which are also very popular.
You need to visit this page: http://www.sfdph.org/dph/eh/Food/Permits/default.asp. Then you need to talk to a lawyer and have a serious discussion about your liability issues (and the liability issues for your "hosts") and come up with a plan for helping your hosts understand just what they're getting into when they use your site to run a "one table restaurant."
You've created a cute site, but now that you're running it as a business that interacts with the real world you need to step up to the plate and treat it like a real business. And that means dealing with the unsexy stuff like licensing (for yourself or your hosts).
In two weeks, if you haven't added something to your site about this, I'm going to personally call the SF Department of Public Health myself.
Wow. What a terrible way to respond. First, opening with "fuck you" and calling another commenter an asshole is uncivil and drags the site down. Second, the insults you chose to hurl at the commenter are empty and boring; they're written solely for your benefit and not for any reader, including the commenter you're replying to. And if you're upset about the commenter's threat to call the health inspector, howling insults at them is (a) unlikely to change their mind and (b) certainly going to make this thread more memorable, lessening the chance that they'd simply forget to make good on the threat.
I'm just not sure what you're trying to accomplish. I read both your comments and those of the commenter you're replying to, regularly. Confidently: he doesn't care what you think.
Site seems down, but assuming it is meals at home with people, I like the concept. I wouldn't want to drop in to a dinner with a family or something, but if you did themed dinners ("crypto hackers dinner?" "YC applicants dinner") it would be both more appealing AND legally a lot safer -- even a heavy handed government would be wary of censoring free association and speech with incidental food, rather than purely commercial food.
Thank you for your comments. I am the founder of Cozymeal. The overwhelming interest in Cozymeal and the resulting traffic brought down our site. We are working on bringing it up ASAP.
The photography of the meals is spot on, could seem like a small thing but glad that you took a leaf from Airbnb's book to make sure that the meals are presented in the best possible way.
It would be incredibly unfortunate if this were found to be illegal. You take many of the same health risks when eating at a friend's house. The only difference is you don't pay your friend.
The exchange of payment is precisely what makes this endeavor subject to food safety/preparation laws and (in many jurisdictions) illegal. It changes a social event into a commercial transaction: you pay someone else to eat food they prepared.
This is not remotely the same thing as friends splitting up the cost to buy food, or reimbursing one friend for purchasing food for a social gathering. We don't regulate social gatherings between friends because they have other means to deal with issues that could arise, even, if necessary, the tort system.
There are different expectations when dealing with commercial food transactions--and some of the major expectations are that the food be safe and prepared safely.
Without judging if it's a good thing or a bad thing, some of these services (e.g. Lyft in some cities) use "suggested donations" instead of payment. It changes the legal & tax consequences.
No, it really doesn't, especially not for tax purposes.
The law (and especially tax law) looks at the substance of the transaction, not its form. Calling a payment for commercial services a "donation" doesn't make it a donation. If it did, every business would ask for "donations" instead of payment. Indeed, as a matter of tax law, calling the Lyft fees "donations" actually makes it worse for the drivers--they can't offset the "donation" income with their Lyft-related expenses. (Lyft can't recharacterize the donations it receives on behalf of the drivers as fee compensation when it remits payment to the drivers because it takes the position that they're independent contractors and it is merely acting as a collection agent.)
It seems that the real safeguard in all of these "sharing economy" things is the transaction record. If someone screws someone over on, say, airbnb, there are bad reviews etc. Maybe bitcoin's mechanism can be used to build public irrevocable reputation around these sorts of things. Different world than having a mediator like airbnb choosing the reviews to publish.
This is a very cool concept and I love how it can work together with AirBnB. If there were a similar platform for long-distance travel then I think the sharing economy will help people explore the world in amazing new ways. Not that ride-share and similar services don't exist, but some means to travel international would be amazing. But I can't even imagine the legal problems such a service would face.
Genuinely awesome concept. I hope you find a way to make it work within food/zoning regs because I think this is much more positive and communal than many other 'sharing economy' ideas.
It'd be great if you could figure out a way to provide social trust that wasn't through a FB login though.
Cozymeal has a lot of safety mechanisms to ensure a safe and good experience for both sides (vetting of ALL hosts, mandatory Facebook registration for hosts/guests, etc.). In addition to that, Cozymeal will soon offer an insurance to hosts/guests similar to that offered by AirBnB.
People can host others at their home for a meal. Every prospective host is vetted by Cozymeal before they can host a dinner. People pay to attend the dinner. Cool concept that seems to be picking up steam. Recent dinners were hosted by Michelin Star rated chefs.
Nice looking site. But sites like this are only continuing to influence the many public health worries that we face today. There is no nutritional information on any of the meals on this site! Just another social site, looking at the wrong aspect of health.
Meals have been social for much longer than they've been nutritionally quantified. IOW, we've shared food and community for thousands of years just fine without a list of nutritional facts for the buffalo or potatos we've eaten. I'd say this site is bringing things back to their roots, not focusing in the wrong direction.
It's completely legal...as long as anyone who uses CozyMeal to run a food service business goes through the process of registering as a food service business. This largely means inspections to assess the cleanliness of the food preparation, storage, and delivery areas, and a liquor license if alcohol will be served.
Also, I wonder if Cozymeal might find opportunities on the operations/materials side of this equation. I know that e.g. sourcing and selecting ingredients is frequently a very personal experience for chefs and restauranteurs, but I can't help but think there could be some upside to facilitating volume pricing of certain ingredients for members within a particular region, not unlike how members of hobbyist electronics groups will organize group buys of components. If ingredients are a bridge too far, they might apply the same logic to more practical items—flatware, napkins, menus, and so forth.