Debbie Utley-Gates

Grace, you can accept credit cards with your mobile device and I would recommend Square or PayPal Here.

Hi,
You can opt for mobile payment services. Certain Merchant services provide mobile payment processing app that can accept payments online. The customer also receives an e-receipt. I am using the Virtual terminal for online payments. I think the process is pretty much the same.

You may be able to do that, as long as your property is in an area that is zoned to allow roadside stands. Try to find the dept that manages planning/zoning and contact them about it. You may also need to discuss it with the health dept.

As long as you’re using a commercial kitchen, then you should be able to do this with the proper licenses. http://forrager.com/faq/#commercial

The map links to the law page for NY: http://forrager.com/law/new-york/

That page gives a fairly detailed overview of the law and should answer many of your questions. You cannot start an online business from your home kitchen, and if you wanted to start a CFO, you would need to get registered by the ag dept. To start an online food business,…[Read more]

Lauren, I’m sorry you had so many problems! I sent you an email about this.

Hi there,
Had a technical error when trying to build my new CFO page. The loading was failing for registering my region and then when I tried to register my business anyway, I received an Internal Server Error message. I also got a delivery failure when I tried to email your webmaster.

Correct, it’s almost always illegal for someone to operate a restaurant in their neighborhood, even a small one. When these services get large enough, they have to answer to regulators. One Bay Area service like this (Josephine) recently got shut down by the health dept because they were growing very quickly.

Self-employment tax includes social security tax. That’s the tax you pay in your quarterly estimated tax payments as a business. If you earn under a certain amount, you don’t need to pay quarterly.

Some basic info is listed on point #9: https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/3101e/

For more info, try contacting the ag dept: http://www.maine.gov/dacf/qar/index.shtml