Homio vs Shef vs Foodnome: Which Marketplace Is Best for California Home Cooks?

If you cook food worth selling, the next question is where to sell it. Homio, Shef, and Foodnome are three names California home cooks often compare, and they are not interchangeable. Homio is a local marketplace, centered on San Jose today, where you set your own prices. Shef is a national platform built around weekly meal subscriptions, and it handles delivery. Foodnome is best known for helping cooks open home restaurants in California. Pick the wrong one and you will fight its model every week; pick the right one and it fits the way you already cook.

The short answer

If you cook near San Jose and want to set your own prices, offer pickup, delivery, or both, and keep your own menu, Homio is the fit. If you want a large platform that brings weekly subscribers and handles delivery, and your food travels and reheats well after refrigeration, Shef is the fit. Foodnome’s website was unreachable when we checked, so none of its current fees, payouts, service areas, or signup terms could be verified. The rest of this post shows the working, so you can check it yourself.

The comparison at a glance

Homio: the local marketplace where you set the price

Homio is a marketplace for homemade food. Most of its cooks are in San Jose today, with a few in nearby and other Northern California cities. Applying and listing cost nothing: there is no application fee and no monthly subscription fee. Every dish is priced by you, with no minimums and no set menu. You receive the base price you set for each dish, payments run through Stripe (typically about 2 days, and up to 7 days for your first payment), and your cook profile settings determine whether you offer pickup, delivery, or both.

That makes Homio a natural fit for cooks whose menus do not fit one mold: a cook selling hot noodle soup on Saturdays, a baker selling cakes through the week, or a cook offering party trays for weekend gatherings.

The honest limits: Homio is newer and smaller than Shef, and its cooks are concentrated in one region, so it will not hand you a national subscriber base on day one. What it gives you instead is control over your prices, your menu, and your schedule. Homio also makes no earnings or order-volume promises, which is the right expectation for any marketplace: how much you make depends on your prices, your menu, and how often you cook.

Shef: the national weekly-meal platform that handles delivery

Shef is the largest of the three and works very differently from Homio. You apply and submit a menu. If approved, you complete a taste test: one serving each of three approved dishes from your application, delivered cold to Shef’s taster. Shef’s cook page says most cooks are up and running in 3–4 weeks. Customers subscribe to weekly meal plans and can skip or change an order until 3 p.m. three days before delivery. You cook, cool, and package your orders, then bring them to the nearest Shef drop-off point; Shef notes that delivery methods vary by market. Shef supplies ice packs, cooler bags, and labels, and you supply ingredients, containers, and a home printer.

That delivery engine is the attraction, and also the trade-off. Food is cooled and refrigerated for delivery, so Shef asks for dishes that travel and reheat well. Its menu guide rules out frozen food, raw seafood, and customization or special requests.

For pay, Shef’s help page “Weekly Service and Marketplace Payouts” separates its two programs. If your dishes are only in its Marketplace, you set the price and your payout is 70% of it. Dishes in the Weekly Shef Service pay fixed amounts per serving, such as $10 for a standard main, $13 for a premium main, and $2–$6 for staples and sides. Weekly Service dishes that are also sold in the Marketplace must be priced at least slightly above those payouts. The page says some markets use variable payouts instead. Shef’s Weekly Service help page also says new cooks are currently being onboarded to that program only in Austin, Boston, and DC, and other service zones are waitlisted.

Shef does operate in the Bay Area: its metro list includes the Bay Area alongside Los Angeles, New York City, and nine other metro areas. If you want scale, weekly subscribers, and someone else handling delivery, that reach is real. If you want to set every price yourself, sell hot food for pickup, or sell dishes that do not refrigerate and reheat well, Shef’s model will work against you.

• Shef: become a Shef (application, taste test, payouts, and costs)
• Shef Help: Weekly Service and Marketplace Payouts

Foodnome: the original home-restaurant platform

Foodnome began in Davis, California, and became known for helping cooks open home restaurants and then listing those restaurants on its marketplace. Historically, its cooks sold meals for pickup, with some dine-in.

The caution is that Foodnome’s current offer cannot be confirmed. On October 26 and again on November 1, 2026, foodnome.com returned a Cloudflare “DNS points to prohibited IP” error (Error 1000), which Cloudflare describes as a problem the site owner has to fix. We could not find a current fee, payout, service area, or cook-signup terms published by Foodnome itself. Do not build a plan around Foodnome until its own site says it is signing up cooks in your city and what it charges.

Which marketplace is best for you?

• A cook near San Jose selling hot meals for pickup or delivery on your own schedule: Homio. Local customers, your prices, your hours.
• A baker or snack seller who wants to list next to hot-meal cooks without a set menu or minimums: Homio.
• A cook who wants a big platform, weekly subscribers, and delivery handled for them: Shef, if your food travels and reheats well and you are comfortable with its payout structure and taste test.
• A cook interested in running a home restaurant with Foodnome: wait until its site is back online and publishes current signup terms and fees for your area.
• A cook who wants maximum reach: consider listing on more than one platform. Homio does not require exclusivity; check each platform’s terms, and keep your schedules and capacity in sync so you never double-book a Saturday.

Ready to list your food?

• Join Homio as a cook
• Browse home cooks near you