yes, check with the city you live in, you should have a license, a dba for a business bank account, liability insurance, and be a certified food handler. you should have all of these to operate a business.You should also belong to this wonderful association. call candy for details.
Donny - depends totally on where you are. In the county where I live in Maryland, we are have never had to have a license of any kind. Now that we have a commercial kitchen, it is licensed as a restaurant and wholesale manufacturing kitchen, so we can do anything out of it.
You need to file your company name under a DBA or Business Alias or whatever your state or jurisdiction requires. You can usually do that through the Secretary of States website from your state government.
You need to have your insurance and your Serv Safe. That is for your protection and this associations requirements, it is not a licensing requirement to work as a personal chef.
Thank you thecooktoo. I want to start this company as SIMPLE as possible but the more research i do the more i find i might have to file, etc. I cant fill out the business certificate with the county clerk's office unless i give them a business address, but were not operating out of our home, do we need to spend $85 on a P.O. Box, if so, the other places i thought i needed to file wont accept a P.O. Box, im constantly hitting dead ends here. I refuse to belive that strating a business is as easy as ppl say it is. Do you have any advice for me as to how to get started as simple as possible??? the thing thats scaring me the most i guess is the taxes. Any info that you can pass on to me would be awesome! thank you so much
Donny, where will you be operating from? I used my personal home address, but I do not cook for clients in my home kitchen...I cook in theirs. Please fill out your profile so that we know what state & county you reside in, and can better help you.
To add to "cooking alilbit", excepting those who have access to a commercial kitchen, we all cook in the client's home but our "base of business" is generally our home, usually a desk in a corner of a room.
Very few jurisdictions that I'm aware of will accept a P.O. box, they want a physical address.
oops, sorry, i just filled out my profile. Im in westchester county NY. So this means i dont need a P.O. box? well thats good news. What about filing for a DBA did you guys do that? Chef Pierre, speaking of office, my mom would be the owner but i will be doing the books printing business cards, menus etc, does it matter that its not at the same address?
I have access to a commercial kitchen, like many other personal chefs, and I like a lot of them, only use it on an as needed basis. Those chefs that only do deliveries etc that use someone else's commerical kitchen, still uses their home address for their business. Now if you OWN the commerical kitchen, then that would be the address to use.
Thanx so much, that is very helpfull! Here's another question, if we are starting as a sole proprietership how does my mom payherself? and how do we figure out our pay rate?
Starting a business requires so much research. A lot of people find themselves re-inventing the wheel unnecessarily, and sometimes find themselves out of business. APPCA has training materials on how to properly run a personal chef business. They do not teach you how to cook, as one should know that already if they plan on being a personal chef.
My suggestion is that your mother call the APPCA home office. More times than not, Chef Candy Wallace answers the phone and not many CEOs do. Your mother will find Chef Wallace, who is the actual pioneer of the personal chef industry, to be very down to earth, with more information than your mother can dream of asking. The number is 800-644-8389 and is in the pacific time zone.
