Texas opened up home kitchens last year. Dallas Fort Worth's shelf is still mostly cookies.

Dallas Fort Worth is the second biggest place on Coop, with 583 live listings from 183 sellers as of this week. Only St. Louis is bigger. I've been looking at that shelf next to a piece of news from last year, and the two don't line up the way I expected!

Here's the news. On September 1, 2025, Texas rewrote its cottage food law. The old list of about 20 allowed foods is gone. Now you can sell "any food other than" a short banned list, and the cap went from $50,000 to $150,000 a year in gross sales. Refrigerated foods like cheesecake and custard pies are allowed too (you register with the state and keep them cold). Our Texas guide has the whole thing, checked against the official sources.

So a Dallas kitchen can sell much more than it could two years ago. What are Dallas kitchens actually selling?

The Dallas shelf, this week

Cookies, bread and sourdough lead the way (the categories overlap a little, so don't add the rows up). Those are great products, and they're what most people start with because they're forgiving and they don't need registration. But look at the bottom rows. Cheesecake, pies and tres leches are exactly the things the 2025 change made easier to sell legally, and in a metro this size there are only a handful of sellers for each.

Why I think the gap is real

A few things I notice when I look at the whole Dallas picture:

• Refrigerated desserts are barely there. Nine cheesecake listings and five tres leches listings across a metro of 183 sellers. Tres leches especially is a Texas favorite, and it's a dessert that has to stay cold, which used to be a roadblock.
• Pickles and ferments are thin. Three listings from two sellers. Texas lets you sell acidified and fermented foods, with some testing and record keeping, so it takes a bit more work to start. That's probably why it's quiet.
• Honey and cut flowers have no Dallas listings at all, and dairy has two. If you keep bees or grow flowers, you'd be the first one on the page.
• Eggs are in good shape. 36 listings from 28 sellers, which is why farm fresh eggs near Dallas has its own page.

One honest note about meat. It's on Texas's banned list for cottage food, so those 8 meat listings from 2 sellers out near Celeste and Farmersville are selling under a different set of rules. If that's you, start with the state agriculture and health departments, not our guide.

What I'd do if I were starting in Dallas this week

1. Pick something Dallas shoppers already like that isn't crowded. Tres leches, empanadas, or a cheesecake that's a little different will stand out in a way a fourth chocolate chip cookie won't.
2. Take the food handler course and register if you're selling anything that needs refrigeration. The guide walks through it.
3. Plan around personal delivery. Texas lets you take orders online, but you or someone in your household has to hand the food over. You can't ship it. That's a good fit for Coop, where orders are for local pickup or delivery. Setting one regular day for it makes life easier (here's a lesson on setting a pickup rhythm).
4. Say how much you have. Cold desserts don't keep, so list a small number and let it sell out. This lesson shows how.

The metro stretches well past Dallas itself, from Fort Worth and Arlington out to Keller and McKinney, so there's a lot of ground for a new storefront to cover. You can browse the whole thing at Dallas on Coop.

Want to try it?

If you've got a recipe people keep asking you for, open a storefront on Coop and publish your first listing. It's free to start. And if you live in Dallas and want to see what's near you, the Dallas page is the place to start.

This is general information, not legal advice. Rules change and depend on what you sell, so confirm with the Texas Department of State Health Services before you start.

Cole Coleman, founder of Coop