Josephine is closing its doors

A note to our community

Dearest Josephine community,

After nearly four years of operation, it’s with heavy hearts that our team has decided to wind down Josephine. The last date for meals will be Friday, March 30th.

We knew that Josephine was an ambitious idea from day one and, as you all know, there have been many highs and lows over the years. At this point, our team has simply run out of the resources to continue to drive the legislative change, business innovation, and broader cultural shift needed to build this business.

To those of you just getting acquainted with us, we’re sorry we didn’t have more time together. To those of you who have been with us for the long haul, thank you for sticking with us through all the ups and downs, for believing in this community, and for sharing our vision. Thank you for your incredibly delicious meals, your heartfelt customer reviews, your emails filled with ideas of how to make Josephine bigger and better. This is what’s kept us going — knowing you were with us.

We acknowledge that this news brings a very real sadness and disappointment for many of you who have woven Josephine into your lives and have even come to count on these meals, either to feed your families or to pay your rent. Especially for many of our cooks — the time, effort, passion, and love that you put into creating your own food business with us is by no means trivial. We don’t take that lightly, and recognizing all that you’ve done has made coming to this decision all the more difficult.

To ease the transition, we will be keeping the platform running for another 60 days to allow time for cooks and customers to enjoy a few more meals together. For meals happening between February 1st and March 30th, we will be waiving our platform fees.

We will also be sending our cooks off with a transition packet, which will include their business data, customer contact info (for those who opt-in), alternative business proposals and recommendations, tool/service recommendations for replacing our platform functionality, and other general resources. We hope that these personalized packets, along with community-run versions of our cook community forums and groups, will be a stepping stone for folks who would like to continue making income through their cooking skills.

For more information regarding timeline, credit refunds, ongoing support, and more, please see our Cook and Customer FAQs.

In the meantime, we will continue carrying forward our policy work in California and around the country through the C.O.O.K. Alliance. This coalition will help organize the dozens of organizations, hundreds of home cooking businesses, and tens of thousands of individuals who have come out in support of more inclusive food permitting laws. We’d love to have you join us.

In four years, you have held us accountable to running a values-driven business. As cooks, you have opened your kitchens and shown your neighbors compassion and kindness. As customers, you’ve willingly walked into strangers’ kitchens and let them feed you and your family; you’ve chosen to support local entrepreneurs, even when it wasn’t always the closest or quickest option. These actions have built more resilient local communities, but more importantly, they have changed the way that we see and empathize with each other.

Despite having fallen short of our aspirations for Josephine the business, we still have unwavering conviction in the momentum of this movement. The mission of Josephine has been more than just supplementing incomes or simplifying family dinners. Our mission has always been to serve and to empower each other, and to that end we hope that the impact of Josephine will transcend the timeline of our business.

With Care,

Josephine Team
Charley, Matt, Lisette, Meleyna, Tyler, Chelsea, Jessica, Jordan, Melissa, Liz

Josephine Emeritus Team
Tal, Emily, Sika, Brian, Patti, Daniel, Simone, Ana, Terry, Lindsey, Matt W., Zeke, Joy