Florida and Texas Let You Run a Business From Your Kitchen. Why Can't New York?

Scroll TikTok for five minutes and you'll see it. Someone selling sourdough out of a Brooklyn apartment. Cookie boxes out of a kitchen in Queens. Birthday cakes in Miami, tamales in Houston, banana pudding in Atlanta. Running a business from home is everywhere right now.

But where you live decides whether the city calls it a business or a problem.

The biggest home kitchen in America is Facebook Marketplace

Search "buying food from Marketplace" and see what comes up. Reddit threads with hundreds of comments. YouTube videos investigating the "illegal" food of Facebook. Tamales, empanadas, cookie boxes, birthday cakes, all sold by people in their own neighborhoods.

People aren't doing this to break rules. They're doing it because their neighbors are hungry, money is tight, and Marketplace is where everyone already looks.

That's a pop-up. It just doesn't have a map yet. (We wrote about why pop-ups get buried in Pop-Ups: The Stores Your Feed Never Shows You.)

One hustler in Queens

Sean Fernandez is out of Queens. "I sell drip, kicks," he says, plus homemade food on the side. Ask him why he started and he doesn't overthink it: "Because I'm a hustler."

Most of his customers find him on Instagram. That's also the problem. "Competition, and it's hard to be found."

So what would he do if New York made it as easy as Texas? "Same old way, 'cause I'm a hustler. I hustle. Plus, I'm no chef."

This from a man who sells homemade food. New York's most honest marketing.

Sean isn't waiting for a permission slip. Neither are thousands of people like him. The only question is whether their neighbors can find them.

The short answer for New Yorkers: yes, you can sell some homemade food in New York. Register for free as a home processor, stick to baked goods and jams, and sell only inside New York State. That's the legal part. Now for the part that's going to start an argument.

Florida and Texas said yes

Florida went first. Since 2021, home cooks there can sell up to $250,000 a year of food made in their own kitchens, and they can even ship it by mail. Cities there aren't allowed to ban home businesses outright, either.

Texas followed in 2025. Small home businesses there don't need a city permit before they start. Bake, tutor, sew, fix, sell. As long as you're not bothering the neighbors, it's your home and your business. Home cooks in Texas can now sell up to $150,000 a year.

Now look at New York.

A city that runs on hustle, and makes hustlers wait

There are about 20,000 street vendors in this city. Fewer than 8,000 have a license. The waitlist has more than 10,000 names on it. In 2025, roughly 130 new licenses went to new businesses. One hundred and thirty, in a city of eight million. You have better odds getting a Friday night table at Carbone.

The City Council finally passed a reform this year that could open up thousands of new licenses. Starting in 2027. Maybe. The councilmember who sponsored it already said implementation won't be easy.

Rent is up. Groceries are up. Everyone's talking about a recession. And the message to the person who just wants to sell what they make is still the same: take a number. It's 10,001.

What you can sell from your kitchen in New York today

New York calls it a home processor registration. It's free, and it doesn't expire. With it, you can sell:

• Breads, rolls and muffins
• Cookies, brownies and cakes
• Fruit pies with a top and bottom crust
• Jams and jellies made with high-acid fruits

You can't sell anything with dairy, meat or fish, drinks, sauces, pickles or cream-filled pastries. You can sell at markets and craft fairs, by delivery, or online, as long as it stays inside New York State. No shipping to your cousin in Jersey.

It's a start. It's not Florida. It's not even Texas. Nobody in New York has ever said "why can't we be more like Texas" before, and honestly, we're as surprised as you are.

The permission slip problem

Every rule like this comes with a reason. Safety. Order. Fairness to stores that pay rent. Some of those reasons are real.

But look at who actually gets stuck. Not the chains. Not the apps taking a cut of every order. The ones stuck are the grandmother with a recipe, the student selling cookies to pay for books, the guy who fixes phones better than the store down the block. Somewhere in Queens, a grandmother's lasagna is apparently a bigger threat to the system than a delivery app's service fee.

Florida and Texas decided the default should be yes. New York still starts at no.

Where Secret World stands

We built Secret World for the people who make this city work and never got a storefront. A live map of opportunities, where your neighbors can find what you're selling because you're close, not because you paid for ads or have followers.

So here's what we think: New York should make it easier to start, not harder. Let people sell from home. Clear the vendor waitlist. Treat hustlers like the small businesses they are.

Until then, use every door that's already open. Register your kitchen for free, put your pop-up on the map, and let the block find you. Just leave the cream puffs out of it. Albany is watching.

Agree? Disagree? Tell us on Instagram. And if you're a New Yorker selling from home, we want to hear your story.

Get Secret World and see what's for sale around you right now.

Questions people are asking

Is it legal to sell food from home on Facebook Marketplace in New York?

Some of it is. If you register for free as a home processor, you can sell approved foods like breads, cookies, cakes, fruit pies and jams, online too, as long as your buyers are in New York State. Meals with meat, anything with dairy, and drinks can't come from a home kitchen.

Why are so many people selling food on Marketplace?

Because it's free to list, it's where neighbors already look, and money is tight. Home cooking is one of the quickest ways to make extra cash with what you already have.

What should I check before buying homemade food?

Ask what's in it and when it was made. Look for a label with the maker's name and ingredients. And buy from someone nearby you can actually talk to, because knowing who made your food still matters.

The state's home processing rules are here: agriculture.ny.gov/food-safety/home-processing