Start a personal chef business cooking in clients' kitchens
A weekly meal-prep service cooked in the client's own kitchen, priced per session including groceries, allergen and food-safety practices documented, five to eight standing weekly clients, and a legal structure that does not require a commercial kitchen.
Free preview: 4 of 24 steps
Work through them in the real run view, exactly as a buyer does. No account, no payment, nothing saved.
3 free unlocks per month — yours to keep forever
No account needed — nothing is saved.
Included with every copy
- Your own copy — keep it forever
- Gets better over time — free updates included
- Run it on web and mobile
- Invite a partner to go through it with you — you share the same progress
- Make it your own — a private copy you can edit to fit your situation
- The playbook's community — ask questions, get additions, and see how other buyers improve it, right on the step
Who it's for
Competent home cooks and trained cooks with under $2,500 to risk who want food-business income without the capital of a restaurant, a truck, or a licensed kitchen, and who are comfortable working in other people's homes.
About this playbook
Turn cooking skill into a weekly meal-prep service run inside clients' own kitchens — no restaurant, no truck, no commercial kitchen. You will first prove someone will pay, then define and price one session, run the numbers, verify the in-home cooking rule for your own state and county, register a single-member LLC, get food-handler certification and liability insurance, sign your first five weekly clients, and read the first ninety days against the plan. Everything is scoped to a start with $500–$2,500 of your own money and a single cook. The guide does not cover restaurants, catering, food trucks, or cottage-food businesses, where you prepare food at home and sell it elsewhere — that is the opposite model and a different license. Every state and county rule is checked locally rather than assumed, because that is where the line between licensed and not licensed is drawn.
What you'll do, step by stepFree preview
Only a sample is open: 4 of 24 steps can be read in full. The rest unlock when you buy.
Phase 1: Prove someone will pay for a week of your cooking
4 stepsPhase 2: Set the offer and the price
4 stepsPhase 3: Run the numbers and fund the start
5 stepsPhase 4: Make it legal: the in-home rule, certification, structure, insurance
5 stepsPhase 5: Sign the first clients and run the weekly rhythm
4 stepsPhase 6: The first 90 days: read the numbers, keep or cut
2 steps
Details
What you need first
You can plan and cook a week of balanced meals for a household without a recipe, you have reliable transport for grocery runs, a smartphone, and a spreadsheet, and you have a personal network you can ask for trial sessions. You need about $500 available and a US address in the state where you will work. Willingness to keep allergen and food-safety records is required; a commercial kitchen is not.
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