Most home cooks and small food makers run their business across several tools: social media to be seen, DMs for questions and orders, a notes app to keep track, and mental maths for how much to make. TrulyServd puts that in one kitchen, built around how home kitchens actually work.
Here's what you get, and what to expect.
Your kitchen page
Your kitchen has its own public page at trulyservd.com/k/your-name, with your photo, your bio, every dish you sell and your reviews. Buyers can browse it and order without messaging you first. Share the link in your bio, your stories or your market sign.
Your dishes also show up in TrulyServd search. Buyers search by dish and city, or browse by cuisine, category and dietary tag, and find you, not a list of restaurants.
Getting set up
Your kitchen home has a short setup checklist:
- Kitchen profile: name, photo, bio, which payments you accept (cash, Interac e-Transfer or both) and your payment instructions.
- Pickup location: where buyers collect. You can add several (home, a market, a pop-up spot).
- Hours: when you cook and when you hand off.
- Your first dish.
- Verification: a government ID and a selfie are required. You can also add a food safety certificate, a home kitchen inspection, proof of address or a food business licence.
- Submit for review.
We review every kitchen before it goes live, and email you when it's approved. Until then, your dishes aren't visible to buyers. Most of the setup takes an afternoon.
Short on time? Leave your details on the Sell page and we'll be in touch.
Dishes
Each dish has:
- Name, description and one to three photos. List every ingredient in the description.
- Price. Either a single price, or several options such as "Small" and "Large", each with its own price.
- Cuisine, category and dietary tags, so buyers can find it.
- Allergens, shown on the dish so buyers know before they order.
- Lead time: how much notice you need, from a few minutes up to 24 hours.
- Prep time: how long the batch takes, used to build your cooking plan.
You can save a dish as a draft, publish it, or pause it at any time.
Hours: cooking time and pickup time are separate
Home kitchens don't work like shops, so TrulyServd keeps two clocks for each day:
- Working hours: when you're in the kitchen.
- Pickup hours: when buyers can collect.
Set a weekly pattern, or start from a preset (Weekday Lunches, Weekend Only, Evening Cook, Every Day). Then change any date in the next two weeks: close it, change the hours, or use a different pickup location.
How pickup times are worked out
Buyers never type in a time and wait for you to agree. TrulyServd offers 15-minute pickup slots for the next 14 days, calculated from your hours and your dishes' lead times.
Lead time only counts inside your working hours on the same day, so nobody can book a 4-hour dish for 30 minutes after you start cooking. If an order has several dishes, the longest lead time applies.
Portions: plan your days
For today and your next few working days, set how many portions of each dish you'll make. You can copy today's plan forward. TrulyServd keeps count as orders come in, and a day that's sold out stops taking orders for that dish.
Two kinds of orders
- Instant orders. If you've planned portions for the pickup day and there's enough left, the order is confirmed straight away. You get an email and you cook.
- Pre-orders. If you haven't planned that day, the order comes in as a pre-order and you accept or decline it. You have about an hour. Late at night or early in the morning, the deadline moves to 10 a.m. You get a reminder email 15 minutes before it runs out. If you don't respond in time, the order expires and the buyer is told.
Emails and chat
You get an email within about a minute of every new order, plus reminders for pre-orders that are about to expire. Each order has its own chat with the buyer. If you like, you can also let buyers message you before ordering. That's a switch on your profile.
Getting paid
TrulyServd doesn't process payments. Buyers choose cash at pickup or Interac e-Transfer (whichever you accept) at checkout. Once you accept an order, they see your pickup address and your payment instructions.
Want a deposit, or payment before pickup? Agree it in the order chat. When the money arrives, mark it received on the order. Your dashboard shows how much is still waiting to be paid.
Pickup day
Mark the order ready, hand it off, and tap Handed off. If someone doesn't come, you can mark a no-show once their pickup time has passed. You can also cancel an order with a reason if you have to.
After pickup, buyers can leave a review of one to five stars within 30 days. You can reply once to each review, and edit your reply later.
Your kitchen home
When you open your kitchen you see:
- orders waiting for you to accept, with a countdown
- today's pickups, in order
- a cooking plan that tells you when to start each batch
- the week ahead: how full each day is against what you planned
- unread messages, money still to collect, your average response time, and which dishes are and aren't selling
Pause
Need a break? Pause new orders until a date, and resume whenever you like. Orders you've already accepted stay on your list.
Pickup only
There's no delivery. Buyers come to you at your home, market stall or pop-up spot. Before they order they only see the area label you choose. The exact address appears after you accept.
Ready to set up your kitchen? Start on the Sell page.