We started Barter Kitchen because a meal cooked at home is one of the last unmediated transactions left. There is no app between you and the person setting the table. There is no rating, no tip, no algorithm picking who sits where. The cook decides who eats. The diner decides what they bring.
The platform is a bulletin board, not a restaurant. We exist to make introductions safer than a stranger ringing a doorbell, and quieter than a marketplace. Identity verification is offered on request and reviewed by hand — diners and cooks choose when to add the badge, and hosts choose when to require it. We share the cook's address only after both sides have agreed. We do not pass money between people, and we do not take a cut, because the moment someone is paying for a meal it stops being a barter and starts being a restaurant.
Barter Kitchen is free to use. We don't handle money and we don't take a cut; we plan to keep it running on donations.
Barter Kitchen is built and run by trans people and allies. The table is for everyone willing to share it — across race, gender, sexuality, faith, ability, and most differences besides. The one thing we won't host is the refusal to sit with people on the basis of who they are.
If you would like to support the work, the donate page explains how. If you would like to host or to sit at someone's table, the sign-up page is where it starts. And if you want to ask us anything first, write to support@barterkitchen.com. We'll write back.