Backyard micro-restaurants are finally legal in parts of the Bay Area. Meet the chefs leading them

If you’re lucky — and a bit patient — Chef Kellie Joe might just let you into her backyard for an invite-only dinner at her custom-built venue, the Patio Oasis.

After decades of working to make it a reality, the Pleasant Hill chef and former culinary educator says she’s finally living her dream: offering fully legal food experiences from her backyard, where she cooks up fresh pizzas topped with eggs from her chickens and basil harvested from her herb garden.

The former Monte Vista High School culinary teacher pivoted to entrepreneurship around 12 years ago, but struggled with the overhead costs associated with running her online pizza store Queen of Crusts and her private pizza chef program Chicks and Love Pizza. At the time, the law mandated that she could only cook in a commercial kitchen, which was costly to rent. And even with a cottage food permit, she was allowed to prepare pizza dough to sell, but couldn’t cook or slice the toppings.

“Having a small food business is not for the faint of heart,” she says.

That all changed two years ago, when Contra Costa County first launched a pilot program to take advantage of a 2018 amendment to the state health code that allows cities and counties to grant permits to home chefs to make and sell their products in-house — essentially legalizing what’s been an underground economy for centuries. These permitted businesses — called Micro-Enterprise Home Kitchen Operations, or MEHKOs — are thriving across the Bay Area counties where they’ve been permitted to operate, and are bringing expanded access to unique outdoor dining experiences.

Joe went on to secure a license to serve beer and wine, and now offers “pizza by the pond” four-course meals and themed dinners featuring wine cocktails or mocktails, organic salad, garlic noodles, pizza and handcrafted gelato next to her backyard koi pond.

“It’s not like a restaurant. You’re going to the chef’s house. They are serving you. Most likely, they’re telling you their story,” she says.

The MEHKO program, which now boasts nearly 80 such operations in Contra Costa County, has been so successful in its two-year pilot that the county’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on May 12 to make it permanent.

About two-thirds of the MEHKO businesses in Contra Costa County are owned by women, and there are more Hispanic/Latinx and Asian business owners than any other ethnicity, according to the county’s Environmental Health Director Kristian Lucas. An interactive map operated by the Cook Alliance, an advocacy group that supports informal home cooking businesses, shows hundreds of operations scattered throughout the Bay Area, each with their own approach to the micro-restaurant concept. They’ve so far been legalized in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, but not in San Francisco. Los Angeles County has the most MEHKO businesses so far, at nearly 300.

While Joe hosts diners in her own backyard for special events, another up-and-coming MEHKO business, Live Oak Kitchen, operates as a weekly pop-up barbecue micro-restaurant in Concord.

Live Oak Kitchen

Every Saturday, Concord residents Chef Douglas Richey and Ariana Faustini convert their home kitchen into the preparation zone for an all-day cookout, bringing out the smoker to their driveway.

Richey’s fine-dining culinary background includes work with the Thomas Keller Group and Bouchon, as well as the Culinary Institute of America. He grew up in Lompoc and specializes in Santa Maria-style barbecue, smoked over post or red oak, and spent three months traveling the South honing his barbecue craft.

However, for this couple, the limitations placed on MEHKOs are already being felt. For instance, the law governing the program limits the number of meals served to 30 per day and 90 per week, and has an annual sales cap of $100,000. Catering is not permitted, and food has to be cooked, prepared and sold on the same day.

Still, says Faustini, “The MEHKO route was our only chance to take all the amazing skills Chef Douglas has and be able to have a business around it.”

Opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant, especially without access to generational wealth, is a challenge, she notes. “We are taking advantage of the pathway that is available to us financially.”

So each week, they wake up early and prepare the ingredients they store separately from their personal ones. Faustini gets to work preparing the sides, like cookies and slaw, while Chef Douglas gets the offset smoker going in the driveway. The sales limitations on MEHKOs mean that their dreams of a brick-and-mortar restaurant remain years out, but still possible.

“It’s one of the best feelings in the world, when people tell you how amazing the food is,” Faustini says.

Lovely Tea Parties

And while the people behind Chicks and Love and Live Oak Barbecue both cook and sell their products at home, across the Bay, entrepreneur Paula Liebner, operates her MEHKO, Lovely Tea Parties, a little differently. She prepares goods at home and then brings them to other locations as the chef and creator behind elaborate pop-up tea parties held in backyards and other venues all around the Bay Area.

Liebner, who’s originally from Chile, started her business with two other Chilean friends in 2018, working to bring English-style tea experiences into people’s homes, she says. During the pandemic, they began serving tea party boxes with full menus to people’s homes, and when her business partners were drawn in other directions, she continued to operate the business solo.

“I cook, decorate, organize, and design each event myself with a lot of care and attention to detail,” she says.

Operating as a MEHKO, she says, “has made it possible for me to continue growing in a flexible and sustainable way.”

“Every tea party feels special to me because each one is different and personal for the client. I’ve done birthdays, bridal showers, baby showers, celebrations of life, weddings, and corporate events,” she adds. “What makes me happiest is creating experiences that bring people together in a world that often feels too fast and disconnected.”