41–50 of 56 posts
Is this legal?
Does the site offer hosts/guests any protection (a la AirBnB) in case something goes wrong?
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.
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 comm…
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 b…
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.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
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.)
This is amazing, and my wife and I cant wait to try it.
We need to book a sitter and plan a date night around this.
They site should include the option to "book and Uber to and from"
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. Congratulations, Cozymeal!
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 b…
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 runnin…
Seriously - the world is not as black and white as you would want it to be... we do not need regulation of every single little aspect of our lives.
Have you fucking eaten at restaurants in SF? Try Sam Woo you asshole - that place was an SF legend; and it was one of the most disgusting places.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 runnin…
Fuck you. Seriously - the world is not as black and white as you would want it to be... we do not need regulation of every single little aspect of our lives. Have you fucking eaten at restaurants in SF? Try Sam Woo you asshole - that place was an SF legend; and it was one of the most disgusting places.