Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information Book Your Chef("we", "us") collects when you use this website, how we use it, and who we share it with. Book Your Chef is operated by [business legal name].

The short version

• We collect what we need to connect you with a chef and handle your booking.
• We share your event details with the chefs you ask to hear from. Your email and phone number are shared with a chef only after you pay for a booking with them.
• We share information with the service providers that run the site.
• Card payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
• We do not sell your personal information, and we do not send marketing emails.
• We use no analytics or advertising cookies.

Information we collect

If you are planning an event

When you send a booking request or use Plan your event, we collect your name, email address, phone number (optional), event date, area, number of guests, occasion, type of service, dietary needs, and anything you write in the notes. Plan your event also asks for a budget range.

When you pay, you enter your card details on Stripe's secure checkout page, not on our site. We receive confirmation that the payment went through, the amount, and your email address. We do not receive or store your card number. When you pay, Stripe saves your card so the balance, and any client-delay fee under our Terms, can be charged later; we keep only Stripe's reference to it, never the card details.

If you message a chef through the site, we keep those messages with your booking.

If you are a chef

• The email address you sign in with, and when you accepted our Terms of Service.
• Messages you send to guests through the site.
• If you apply on the site: the details and note you send with your application.
• Feature suggestions you send us, and any public responses you post to reviews.
• If you connect a Google Business Profile, its Google place ID. We do not store your Google reviews; they are loaded from Google each time they are shown.
• The profile you create: name, tagline, bio, services, cuisines, where you are based, areas served, group sizes, dietary needs you handle, pricing, contact details you choose to list, and photos.
• Your availability. If you connect a calendar link, we read that calendar to find the days you are busy and store only those dates. We do not store the titles, descriptions, locations, or attendees of your calendar events.
• Payout setup happens on Stripe's own pages, where Stripe collects your identity, bank, and tax details. We store only your Stripe account ID and whether payouts are active.

If you contact us

If you send us a message from the Contact page or the help form on your booking page, we keep your name, email, and message so the Book Your Chef team can reply and follow up.

If you leave a review

After a paid event, we may email you once to invite a review. If you write one, your rating, review, and first name with last initial are shown publicly on the chef's profile.

If you sign in with Google

Google shares your name, email address, and profile picture with our sign-in provider, Supabase. We use your email address to match you to your chef or owner account.

Information collected automatically

Like most websites, our hosting and database providers keep standard server logs, such as IP address, browser type, and pages requested, to run and secure the site.

Cookies

We set cookies only to keep chefs and the site owner signed in to their dashboards. Browsing the directory, sending a request, and viewing your booking do not set cookies from us. Stripe's checkout page is on Stripe's website and is covered by Stripe's Privacy Policy. Some chef profiles show reviews from Google. When you scroll to them, your browser loads them from our site and loads reviewers' profile photos directly from Google, so Google receives your IP address, as described in Google's Privacy Policy.

How we use your information

• To send your request to the chef you chose, or to your matched chefs, so they can reply to you through the site.
• To keep bookings on the site. Before a booking is paid, we automatically hide contact details in notes and messages, and flag mentions of outside payment apps. The site owner may read flagged messages to enforce our Terms and to help resolve problems with a booking.
• To record that you agreed to our Terms of Service (at checkout for guests, in the dashboard for chefs).
• To let chefs confirm a date and price, and to process your payment and the chef's payout.
• To send emails about your request or booking, such as a confirmation, a price from the chef, a receipt, or a refund notice, and to send chefs and the owner sign-in links.
• To keep records of bookings and payments for accounting, taxes, and resolving disputes.
• To prevent fraud and abuse, and to run, secure, and improve the site.

Who we share it with

• Chefs. Before you pay, the chef you request sees your first name, event details, notes, and messages. If you use Plan your event, up to 3 matched chefs see the same. Once you pay for a booking, that chef also receives your full name, email, and phone number if you gave one, and you receive theirs. Chefs are independent businesses, and what they do with your information after that is governed by their own practices.
• The site owner receives a copy of booking emails.
• Service providers that run the site for us: Supabase (database, sign-in, and photo storage), Stripe (payments and chef payouts), Resend (email delivery), Netlify (hosting), Google (sign-in, only if you choose it, and Google reviews shown on chef profiles). They process information on our behalf to provide their services.
• Legal reasons.If the law requires it, to protect anyone's rights or safety, or as part of a sale or transfer of the business.
• The public.A chef's published profile, including photos, is visible to everyone. A chef's email and phone number are shared only with guests who have paid for a booking.

We do not sell or rent personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.

Your booking link

Your booking page is reached through a private link in your emails, so you do not need an account. Anyone with that link can see your booking details, so please do not share it.

How long we keep it

We keep booking and payment records, including booking messages, for as long as we need them for accounting, tax, and dispute purposes. We keep other information until it is no longer needed or you ask us to delete it. A chef's busy dates from a connected calendar are replaced on every sync and deleted when the calendar is disconnected. Photos a chef removes are deleted from storage.

Your choices

You can ask to see, correct, or delete your personal information by emailing [contact email]. Chefs can edit their profile and photos at any time from their dashboard. We may need to keep some records, such as completed payments, where the law or our legitimate business needs require it.

Security

Card payments are processed by Stripe. Booking details are available only to the site owner and the chef involved, and our systems are set up so the public cannot read bookings or private chef details. No method of storing or sending information is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Children

The site is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from children.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will post the new version here with a new effective date.

Contact

Questions or requests: [contact email], or use our Contact page.
[mailing address]

See also our Terms of Service.