Homecooked’s founders.
When Hojung Kim moved off-campus during his undergraduate days at University of Chicago, he wondered how he would keep up with rent and friends.
His answer: Creating a pop-up restaurant in his home. Friends, friends of friends, and those who heard by word of mouth would come over and pay him to cook them food.
Now Kim and his friends Gabe Oviawe, Kevin Zhen, and Eric Duong are launching an app so that others who don’t want to eat alone can host or attend social, home-cooked meals at an affordable rate.
The app is called Homecooked.
“In a nutshell, Homecooked is a social dining app that lets you book home-cooked meals made by people in your neighborhood,” said Zhen, a junior at Yale College. “Instead of catering or delivery, you go to their homes and sit down and eat with them. It’s really a community-building approach through food.”
MOLLY MONTGOMERY PHOTO
Homecooked co-founder Kevin Zhen: App is “a community-building approach through food.”
Over the past year, the team has helped promote 26 events with a Google document and a Facebook page. Zhen recalls hearing about one event that was a particular success – two Yale graduate students, Chris Wang and Hannah Lant, made butternut squash ravioli and salad for a table full of Yale students and New Haven residents. A retired principal and a software engineer sat beside a Yale undergraduate and three graduate students. The undergraduate and the software engineer, who met for the first time at the dinner, played the video game Super Smash Bros together the next day.
The Homecooked team hopes that once the app is launched, events like Wang and Lant’s will become much more common.
Users will be able to select hosts based on presented interests and food preferences, and rate those hosts based on their experiences at the table. Hosts will be able to charge guests a booking price determined by cost of ingredients and time spent preparing.
The entrepreneurs have funded their work with grants from Yale and University of Chicago, the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, and 1ST50K, an organization that encourages entrepreneurs to launch their business in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. So Kim and Oviawe have based operations in Cape Girardeau, while Zheng and Duong have been promoting meals in New Haven.
Though other apps allow users to book home-cooked meals, Zhen said that Homecooked is different because it focuses on combatting social isolation rather than offering a fancy culinary experience.
“We don’t sell food, really. Homecooked is a lifestyle product. We sell an experience, and we sell an emotion.”
You can follow Homecooked on Facebook and download the app from the iOS app store starting Oct. 23.
I was intrigued by the concept. I immediately rejected the financial and social media aspect of the idea.
When I was growing up in the "fifties" I lived in a neighborhood.
My Mom was a nurse. When Mr. "DiG" went in the hospital, she got him round the clock nursing care. From that point on my single Mom and I became part of their family. I lost count of the number of meals we shared at their dining room table.
When my Mom was working in the afternoon, and I was home alone, I Mrs. "D" made dinner for me or I was invited to eat at the home of my best buddies, Mikey or Johnny. If my Mom was working overnight, Mrs. "D" spent the night.
As an adult, you went to bars and clubs if you wanted to meet women. If you wanted to get to know people, you shared a meal. I think back to meals with Richard, Sandy, Eddy, Jim, Mike, Craig, Meg, Tom, Maureen, Sharon, Jeff, Victoria, Mark, Mike, Marion, Nick, Les, Madelon, Vicki, Pat, Virgil, Larry, Allen, Geoff, Wes, Bill, Bob, Ron, Johnny, Gregg, Andy, Joe, and lunch today with Pete and Steve.
I did not always agree with their opinion, but I listened. Over time, many of my opinions changed, and many were reinforced. I still listen today. Can you imagine Democrats-Republicans, Liberals- Conservatives, Libertarians-Socialists, Husbands-Wives, Brothers-Sisters, Parents-Children, Apartment 1A-1B, and 100-102 Main Street sitting down sharing a meal, having a discussion, and listening?
Patricia and I will share three meals tomorrow, Vince and I will have lunch on Wednesday. I'm very fortunate.
Share a meal, share differing ideas, listen, respect the person, you have the answers. I wish you the best of luck. "Mangiamo"