A commercial kitchen that's busy from 4 a.m. to 2 p.m. sits empty the rest of the day, and food businesses that need a licensed kitchen will pay for those hours. Renting them out is a small business inside your own: you set rates, take bookings, check the cleaning, carry the insurance, and keep the renters' food apart from yours. Done carefully, it pays part of the rent. In the example below, a bakery rents its evenings and Sundays to a caterer, a food truck and a meal prep company, takes $2,783 a month, and keeps about $1,900 after the extra gas, wear, insurance and its own time, about $23,000 a year. Below is who rents, what to charge, the permits and rules, keeping goods apart, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Rent the hours you don't use: evenings, overnight, Sundays.
- Ask your health department first; renters commonly need their own licenses, and your permit may need updating.
- Get your insurer's agreement, and require renters to carry their own liability insurance naming you.
- Charge enough to cover gas, power, wear, insurance and your own time checking in and checking the cleaning.
- Write rules and an agreement: booking, cleaning, labels, storage, allergens, what's off limits.
- Keep renters' food, labeled and on their own shelves, apart from yours.
- TaroStack keeps renters' goods as theirs, counted, apart from your stock. More below.
Who rents a kitchen's spare hours
Caterers who need a licensed kitchen for events, food trucks that need a commissary to prep and clean, meal prep companies that cook in big batches once or twice a week, bakers moving up from cottage food, and sauce and snack makers who sell to stores. They want reliable time slots, some storage, and a kitchen that's clean when they arrive. Shared kitchens compete for them, so knowing what those charge helps; it's set out in commissary kitchen cost.
Permits, insurance and rules
Before taking a renter, ask your health department how it treats renters in a licensed kitchen: commonly each renter holds its own food business license, and your permit may need to note the shared use. Tell your insurer, add any rider it needs, and require each renter to carry liability insurance naming you. Put the terms in writing: booking and cancellation, cleaning before leaving, labels on everything, which shelves are theirs, which equipment is off limits, and what happens to food left behind. Allergens matter more in a kitchen shared with a bakery: a renter cooking with peanuts in the evening affects what you can promise in the morning. This is general information, not legal advice.
What to charge, and what's left
Red Clay Bakehouse, a made-up bakery in Athens, Georgia, I use in these examples, rents three regular slots:
| Renter | Hours a month | Rate an hour | Shelves | Money a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caterer, Tuesday and Thursday evenings | 32 | $28 | 2 at $60 | $1,016 |
| Food truck, prep three nights | 36 | $25 | 1 at $75 | $975 |
| Meal prep company, Sundays | 24 | $28 | 2 at $60 | $792 |
| All renters | 92 | 5 | $2,783 |
Against that, each rented hour costs Red Clay about $5 in gas, power, water and supplies and $2 in wear and repairs, $644 a month for 92 hours, plus a $60 insurance rider and about 8 hours of the owner's time a month checking renters in and checking the cleaning, $160 at $20 an hour: $864 in all. That leaves $1,919 a month, about $23,000 a year, a good part of the bakery's rent. How a bakery works out its own costs is in how to calculate COGS for a bakery.
Keeping your food and theirs apart
The quickest way to lose a renter's trust, or your own customers', is mixed-up stock: a caterer's flour used in your bread, your butter in their sauce, an unlabeled container nobody claims. Give each renter their own shelves in dry storage and the cooler, labeled with their name, and require every container to carry their name, contents and date. Count their shelves with them when they start and when they leave.
Get the calculator
Download the kitchen rental calculator. One line for each renter with the hours, rate and shelves; the money each brings fills in. At the side, your extra costs an hour and a month, and what's left a month and a year. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Three renters, each with goods in your cooler and dry storage, each coming and going on their own schedule, and your own ingredients on the next shelf. A sign-up sheet can't say what a renter has on your shelves, whether the butter going down is yours or theirs, or what was left when one of them stopped renting.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps renters' goods as theirs, counted, apart from your stock.
Renters' goods as theirs. With We make or keep goods for clients turned on, each renter is a client, and the goods they keep with you are their own: received at no cost to you, kept apart, never in your stock value, and released to them when they take them.
Your stock stays yours. Your own flour, butter and sugar are your items, so a count of the cooler shows what's yours and what's each renter's, and your own batches only use yours.
A statement each month. Each renter's monthly statement shows their goods you hold and how each moved, with the month's charges typed onto their order. How a count of the shelves works is in inventory count sheet example.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Whose butter is this | A label, maybe | Every item says whose it is |
| What a renter keeps with you | Walk the cooler | Their goods, counted |
| Your own stock value | Mixed in with theirs | Theirs left out |
| The month's charges | A list | On their order and statement |
Keeping renters' goods, with releases and monthly statements, is on Standard at $99 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.