AJ Miller’s Ocean Beach pizza operation has become a test case for how far a home-based food business can go under San Diego County’s Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation program. Axios San Diego reported that Miller makes about 15 pizzas a week, with demand driving his waitlist from 75 people to 1,500 in one week.
A permitted home kitchen is not the same as a cottage-food business
San Diego County’s permanent MEHKO program took effect Jan. 5, 2024. It allows permitted residents to prepare and sell meals from home kitchens under county health oversight, according to the County of San Diego Department of Environmental Health and Quality.
The county says new MEHKO operators must submit a health permit application, standard operating procedures and a Food Safety Manager Certificate. That framework is separate from Cottage Food Operations, which covers certain low-risk foods that do not require refrigeration—such as bread, pie and fruit jam—sold under limited conditions, the county says.
The available county material does not establish whether Miller’s Ocean Beach kitchen has a MEHKO permit, nor does it provide a current permit list that would allow his operation to be matched to a county record. His reported sales therefore should not be treated as proof that the business is operating under the county program.
Capacity, not demand, is the immediate constraint
According to Axios San Diego, Miller releases a small number of pizzas for Friday pickup through a text list and Hotplate, and the available slots can sell out in less than 30 seconds. The reported scale is far below the meal limits described in a California MEHKO FAQ from the Santa Cruz County Environmental Health Division: no more than 30 meals per day, 90 meals per week and $100,000 in annual gross sales, with the sales threshold adjusted for inflation and the California Consumer Price Index.
Those figures provide statewide regulatory context, not a finding about Miller’s compliance or the specific conditions attached to a San Diego permit. A pizza count also cannot by itself be converted into a meal count or establish whether other county, building or food-safety requirements apply.
A regional comparison, not proof of a statewide trend
San Diego is not the only California jurisdiction to establish a home-kitchen framework. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health says its Board of Supervisors authorized a MEHKO program in May 2024. That program excludes Pasadena, Long Beach and Vernon, which have their own environmental health departments.
Los Angeles is a useful comparison because it shows that authorization is jurisdiction-specific; it does not demonstrate that these programs are expanding at a particular rate or that San Diego and Los Angeles impose identical requirements. In San Diego, the key unanswered question remains whether Miller has completed the county’s permitting process.
For now, the county’s rules explain the regulatory setting, while Miller’s reported 15-pizza weekly schedule explains the scarcity. Whether the Ocean Beach operation is an authorized MEHKO—or an unpermitted business that has yet to be matched to county records—cannot be determined from the supplied public material.
