Unleash the Yeast: Unpacking Rhode Island’s New Cottage Food Law

Eli Rumbarger (left) and Alex Russell of Hotline Pizza in the commercial kitchen space at the Tailor Shop. Photography by Angel Tucker.

Eli Rumbarger of Hotline Pizza also says it was out of his financial reach more than two years ago to launch his fledgling food business out of a commercial kitchen. Rumbarger operated his “pop-up” Detroit-style pizza business in a renegade style before he was able to save enough money to afford the cost of a lease. 

During the onset of the pandemic, unemployed and with few options for restaurant work, Rumbarger amped up business on his Instagram account (@hotline_pizza). Customers could drop him a direct message to order a pizza, pay through Venmo, then drive up to his house on the West End at a specific time slot for a passenger-side pizza handoff in his driveway. But that could only last so long until the Rhode Island Department of Health caught on, he says. 

“Pop-ups were just a hobby at first. Then when the pandemic happened, I was out of a job and I didn’t want the idea of Hotline to die so we started doing it out of the house, even though it was illegal,” Rumbarger says. “There wasn’t a whole lot of regulation. They weren’t pressing down on you at that time, because there was so much going on with restaurants.”

He started out with his former partner selling only ten pizzas each on Fridays and Saturdays to friends, family and fans, but as word got out, popularity grew. “The demand was there, and it turned into twenty pies on Friday and Saturday, then thirty pies Wednesday through Saturday,” he says.

Finally, near the beginning of the second year of business, the Rhode Island Department of Health cracked down on Hotline and they were forced to stop operations out of Rumbarger’s home. 

“It took all my savings and almost a month and a half off from work, because they were aware of us so we couldn’t continue to operate,” Rumbarger says.

At this point, he didn’t want to give up and needed to make things right. Rumbarger teamed up with his friend, Alex Russell, who formerly owned the food business Solid Gold Provisions, which operated out of a commercial kitchen space through Long Live Beerworks. After leaving that business, Russell helped Rumbarger obtain legitimacy by filing proper licenses and securing a commercial kitchen space at the Tailor Shop, owned by Broadway Bistro. 

“Luckily, I had this guy [Alex] because I am not a businessman. I am a cook. It was a hobby for me and I just liked making the pizzas and making people happy with pizza, but when it came down to it, I needed to learn some things,” Rumbarger says. “The other thing is I didn’t have somewhere to operate out of. If it wasn’t for Alex already having the experience of doing it with Solid Gold, it would have been much harder.”

The Tailor Shop serves as a community kitchen for startup food businesses, including Hotline Pizza, Tuesday through Friday, and Irregardless Biscuit Co. on weekends. While Rumbarger and Russell have been fortunate to find a place where they can afford to operate legally, Rumbarger notes that many other startup food businesses aren’t so lucky. 

“If the cottage industry was legal in Rhode Island, we would have absolutely considered that,” Rumbarger says. “That’s how the whole pop-up thing started at a place like this, giving people an opportunity who didn’t have one. There are so many people who could benefit from it.”

Photography by Angel Tucker.

Not everyone in Rhode Island is a fan of the Cottage Food Law. The Rhode Island Hospitality Association represents more than 900 food service, hotels and hospitality members in Rhode Island, where it leads the industry through advocacy, communication and education. When the Cottage Food Law came up in the legislature, RIHA was one of few opponents. 

Their primary concern is food safety regulation. “There is a little inconsistency in terms of the food safety regulations for restaurants and bakeries and home kitchens,” says Sarah R. Bratko, RIHA’s senior vice president of advocacy/general counsel. “And I think it’s a little bit of a misnomer to say it’s commercial kitchens versus home kitchens. There is now a subset of food businesses that don’t have to follow the same food safety rules and regulations that are set by the FDA and the Department of Health that other food service establishments have to.”

RIHA members who oppose the law believe the food safety handlers certification is not adequate training to be engaged in commercial food preparation, especially when it comes to handling allergens. RIHA wanted home kitchens to get a food safety manager certification, which is required by restaurants (this includes eight hours of training and an exam and must be renewed every five years), while the food handlers certification is much easier to obtain. It’s available online and there’s no test, and RIHA says it’s meant to be used under the supervision of a food safety manager — not on its own.

“I have a nephew who has a severe peanut allergy so I follow this very closely — as a commercial food business, a restaurant or a bakery is required to go through state-mandated food allergen training, which is part of the food safety manager certification program,” Bratko says. “Home kitchens are not. So the food handler training touches on allergens and cross-contamination, but it does not go into specifics of how you properly prevent it and the things you have to be aware of when it comes to the preparation and sale of that food.” 

Home kitchens will not need inspections, unlike in Massachusetts where kitchen inspection is mandated as part of the law. “They can be inspected if there’s an issue, but the Department of Health candidly does not have the resources to actually go and inspect,” Bratko adds. “We’ve now created an unexpected, untrained group of commercial food providers.”  

While Bratko acknowledges that the businesses that pressed for the law will be the ones to follow the rules, she’s less confident about others. She said nearly every bakery that RIHA represents in the state of Rhode Island opposes the Cottage Food Law. “From our perspective, if you’re going to operate a business in Rhode Island, you should operate a business,” Bratko says. “There shouldn’t be all these carve-outs and subsets of people that don’t have to follow long-established rules that other people have to follow.” 

But the largest food business incubator in the state is on board for the new law. Hope and Main Founder and President Lisa Raiola says there’s a narrow definition of what can be made at home and legally sold, plus the new law will inspire more food businesses to start up in the Ocean State. An influx of more small food businesses is a good thing for Hope and Main, she says. 

“It will enable the preincubation phase to coming to Hope and Main, which will be really beneficial to these companies. Before, they didn’t have a choice if they wanted to produce legally, no matter what scale they were; they had to be in a commercially compliant kitchen, and for some companies, we know that that is too early for them to be doing that because it is an additional investment.”

Hope and Main intends to host more classes to help new businesses with labeling and marketing efforts, she says. Eventually she thinks these smaller businesses will be ready to scale up and seek out a commercial kitchen space that has access to professional equipment. “Once something reaches a certain scale, it would be difficult to do it out of your home if you intend to grow,” she says.

“What [the Cottage Food Law] does is it democratizes the ability to launch a food business. In Rhode Island, that has been a challenge,” Raiola says. “If anything, I think we’ll end up with more people wanting to come here and work in our environment, because they will have already had this great launch pad from their home.”

Donovan looks forward to baking at home again, and welcomes the competition. “I love that I can tell my kids that hard work and determination pay off,” Donovan says. “It makes me feel excited and hopeful for the future of A Spoonful of Sugar as well as all the other budding cottage food businesses out there.”

In other words, a rising tide delivers more bread.