What: Cook meals to serve in your home
Expected pay: $100 to $700 per event, before expenses
Husl $core: $$$$
Where: Worldwide
Requirements:
- A food handler’s license;
- a clean kitchen;
- a dinning area that can comfortably accommodate guests;
- be willing to submit to personal or virtual inspections
Review: If you’ve ever considered opening your own restaurant, EatWith could be a good way to get started. The site allows you to register as a host to cook meals and serve them in your own home. You set the date, the menu, the number of guests you can accommodate, and the price. EatWith will add a 13% service fee on top of that price when listing the meal on line. For their mark-up, you get covered by the site’s liability policy and the use of its platform, where you can upload photos of your cooking, your menu, and provide a place where your guests can leave reviews. Make sure you set your price to include your mark-up and any tip you hope to receive. And, if this is new territory for you, remember that the time to prepare the meal is only half of it. You need to account for your time to set the table and clean up, too. The site expects the price to be all-inclusive.
If you’re not wild about the idea of hosting strangers in your home, you might also check out DishDivvy, where you can cook for pick-up, or Feastly, which has sites in two cities to create your own pop-up restaurant.
What their chefs say:
Christina Xenos, a full-time personal chef from Los Angeles, says she got her start hosting EatWith pop-up meals at her Los Angeles apartment. Her apartment accommodates a maximum of eight people, who paid $69 each. EatWith’s take was $9. After accounting for her cost of materials — about $100 per dinner — she pockets roughly $350 per night, which she considers well worth her time. “I can’t say enough good things about it. It’s been a really positive experience. I love throwing dinner parties; I love having people over; and this has been really good marketing for my business.”
