A shared kitchen agreement is what a kitchen and each member sign before the member cooks: the plan and its hours, how booking and cancelling work, which shelves are theirs, how everything is labeled, who holds which licenses and insurance, how stations are left, what it costs and what happens to the member's goods when they leave. The clauses that save the most arguments are storage and leaving, because they decide what happens to the unlabeled tub in the walk-in and the freezer shelf a member stopped paying for. Below is what goes in one, a filled-in example, a member's monthly bill, and a free template. It's a starting point, not legal advice.
The short version
- Plan and booking: the hours included, extra hours, how far ahead to book, the cancellation window.
- Storage: which shelves, at what price, and nothing outside them.
- Labels: every container with the member's name, contents and date.
- Members' goods stay the member's; the kitchen keeps them only on the rented shelves.
- Licenses and insurance: the member's own, with the kitchen named on the policy.
- Cleaning, allergens and equipment rules, with fees where they're broken.
- Payment terms, and how long a member has to take their goods when they leave.
- TaroStack keeps each member's goods as theirs, counted, with a monthly statement. More below.
What goes in a shared kitchen agreement
| Term | What it settles |
|---|---|
| Parties and term | Who, from when, and how either side ends it |
| Plan | Hours included, the price, extra hours, whether unused hours carry over |
| Booking | How and how far ahead members book, and the cancellation window |
| Storage | Which shelves in dry storage, cooler and freezer, at what price |
| Labels | Name, contents and date on every container, and what happens to unlabeled ones |
| Members' goods | That they stay the member's, kept only on rented shelves |
| Licenses and insurance | The member's own license, food safety certificates and liability insurance |
| Cleaning | The standard for leaving a station, and the fee if it isn't met |
| Allergens | What members bring in, and how shared tools are handled |
| Equipment | Training, and who pays for damage |
| Payment | When plans and storage are billed, and when they're due |
| Leaving | How long members have to take their goods, and what happens after |
Kitchen rules, the day-to-day version, sit alongside the agreement; a cleaning log for each station is in cleaning log template.
A filled-in example
Shenandoah Commons Kitchen, a made-up shared kitchen in Harrisonburg, Virginia, I use in these examples, signs Rocktown Tamales, a made-up tamale maker:
| Term | Example |
|---|---|
| Plan | Regular: 40 hours a month at $1,140; extra hours $30; unused hours don't carry over |
| Booking | Up to 4 weeks ahead; cancel 48 hours ahead or the time is charged |
| Storage | Two walk-in cooler shelves at $90 and one dry shelf at $60 |
| Labels | Name, contents and date on every container; unlabeled items may be thrown out |
| Members' goods | Stay the member's; kept only on the rented shelves |
| Licenses and insurance | The member's own license, certificates and liability insurance naming the kitchen |
| Cleaning | Stations sanitized before leaving; $50 fee if not |
| Payment | Plan and storage billed on the 1st, extras on the next bill, due in 10 days |
| Leaving | Goods removed within 7 days; after that the kitchen may dispose of them |
A member's monthly bill
| Charge | Quantity | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular plan, 40 hours | 1 | $1,140 | $1,140 |
| Extra kitchen hours | 6 | $30 | $180 |
| Walk-in cooler shelf | 2 | $90 | $180 |
| Dry storage shelf | 1 | $60 | $60 |
| Late cancellation, 2 hours | 2 | $30 | $60 |
| Credit: hood repair downtime, hours | −3 | $30 | −$90 |
| Bill for the month | $1,530 |
Rocktown booked 46 hours on a 40-hour plan, so 6 extra hours are billed; a late cancellation is charged as the agreement says, and three hours lost to a hood repair are credited. Writing the credit rule into the agreement keeps the kitchen's own downtime from becoming a dispute. What kitchen time costs members elsewhere is in commissary kitchen cost.
Get the template
Download the shared kitchen agreement template. Two sheets: the agreement, with example wording for every term to change; and a member's month, where the plan, extra hours, shelves, fees and credits give the bill, with the extra hours worked out from the hours booked. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers. Have a lawyer read your agreement before members sign it.
Where this stops working
An agreement says the member's goods are theirs and live on their shelves; thirty members' worth of goods in one walk-in is where that gets tested. A spreadsheet can't say what a member has on hand, what was there the day they left, or what they took out.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each member's goods as theirs, counted, with a monthly statement.
Members' goods as theirs. With We make or keep goods for clients turned on, each member is a client and their goods are their own: received at no cost to the kitchen, kept apart from the kitchen's own supplies, and counted on a phone where they sit.
Releases when they leave. A member taking goods out, including everything when the agreement ends, is a release to them, so what left and when is on record.
A statement each month. Each member's monthly statement shows their goods you hold and how each moved, by lot, with the month's charges typed onto their order, so the bill and the shelves tell the same story. How a count of the walk-in is laid out is in inventory count sheet example.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Whose goods are on a shelf | Tape and memory | Every item says whose it is |
| What a member had when they left | Unknown | Their goods, counted |
| What they took out | Not recorded | A release to them |
| The month's charges | A list by hand | On their order and statement |
Keeping members' 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.