I am in the process of building my own cake shop. In the mean time I have a pending contract to be a preferred baker for a huge Bridal co. So I need license. I have a good friend who owns his own catering company and works out of his now closed resteraunt kitchen. He is willing to let me work as a contractor or partner with him since I only need temporary situation and he will be expanding into another area and the timeing works for us both. Can anyone tell me how I can work with or under his established business. I am so close to being completly leagal myself but I cannot pass up the opportunity in this contract with this bridal company. I need some advise on how to make myself leagal now. I have the kitchen and a willing caterer. There has to be a way that I can work under him some how. I just don't know how to do it. I am in GA. Please help if you can. Thanks

Well, I'm in NY, so of course, there could be huge differences. But, this is how I started out years ago. I approached a caterer about kitchen "sharing" since he mostly used the kitchen on weekends. I would use it alone most of the weekdays and we would "share the space" and equipment on the weekends.

Here's how we did it: I had to get my own Health Dept. Permit. HD would inspect my business as well as his as 2 separate entities. We each had our own insurances for our businesses. I paid 1/2 the rent and 1/2 the utilities. Mostly all I used of his equipment is 3 bay sink, stove top, 1 side of refrig. walk-in and freezer walk-in. I had my own 20 Qt. Mixer, worktables, ingredient bins and oven. He used my mixer sometimes. We each had our own work space. It worked out fine - I will say better for him, because he wasn't clean and I was a neat FREAK! So, I ended up cleaning up after him after he thought he had cleaned.

It was a good start for me - hopefully you'll have the same success.