General Frequently Asked Questions

If the joy and convenience of tasty, healthy food made fresh by a professional chef and hand-delivered to your front door sounds good – we’ve got great news! – you are the perfect Thymeless customer. Our goal is simple: make amazing, vibrant and flavorful food that everyone loves – whether you want to take a break from meat and dairy a few times a week or you're committed to a 100% plant-based diet – and yes, even the pickiest eaters of the bunch love Thymeless! We deliver meals to single folks, couples, large families, and even coworkers who all love our meals and push back from the table feeling the satisfaction of a pleasantly-full stomach. As a Thymeless customer you'll have access to enticing weekly meal choices, chef-made and delivered with the flexibility to fit the needs of you and your family so you can eat better and spend less time putting it on the table.

We currently offer local delivery within the following Santa Barbara area zip codes:

93101, 93107, 93120, 93102, 93108, 93121, 93103, 93109, 93140, 93105, 93110, 93190, 93117

Some addresses in these zip codes may be outside our mileage range, we will contact you directly if this affects your order! If you fall outside these zip codes, please stay tuned. We are looking forward to expanding our service area as we grow!

The opportunity to support our amazing local Santa Barbara farming community is one of the best perks of Thymeless! For freshness and quality control our local growers just can’t be beat. We are committed to choosing organic and non-GMO produce wherever possible. The majority of our non-produce ingredients are organic such as beans, nut milks, tofu, tempeh, vegan cheeses, and yogurts. Due to seasonal availability, supply, selection, and shipping constraints, as well as our desire to provide unique ingredients and recipes, we are sometimes limited in our options for organic and non-GMO products. Please know, this issue is as important to us as it is to you! We continually seek out new ways to source more organic and non-GMO ingredients to bring you consistently delicious, healthy meals.

The opportunity to support our amazing local Santa Barbara farming community is one of the best perks of Thymeless! For freshness and quality control our local growers just can’t be beat. We are committed to choosing organic and non-GMO produce wherever possible. The majority of our non-produce ingredients are organic such as beans, nut milks, tofu, tempeh, vegan cheeses, and yogurts. Due to seasonal availability, supply, selection, and shipping constraints, as well as our desire to provide unique ingredients and recipes, we are sometimes limited in our options for organic and non-GMO products. Please know, this issue is as important to us as it is to you! We continually seek out new ways to source more organic and non-GMO ingredients to bring you consistently delicious, healthy meals.

Great tasting, healthy food means safe food – from ingredient quality to food handling and preparation, transportation, storage and reheat instructions. To begin with, we’ve committed to providing our customers with organic, pesticide-free, clean ingredients wherever available to ensure our food is as fresh and healthful as possible. We are well-versed in the prevalence of food allergies, and our transparency policy includes allergen declarations on each and every meal. If you or others you are choosing meals for have any food allergies please review the ingredient list that will be included weekly on each menu item to avoid any potential allergic reactions. If you have any questions please write to us at info@thymelessmychef.com.

Additionally, we meet or exceed all respected food safety practices and our staff follow our written food safety policies to prevent any issues during the ingredient storage and food preparation phase. We’ve selected premium insulated bags, cooling blocks, and sustainable packaging to keep your food at optimal temperature during the transportation and delivery stage, and each meal arrives with proper storage and reheat instructions to ensure your food is safe from start to finish.

To make sure we have the correct ingredients and time to prepare your dishes, we’ll need to receive your one-time order before the cutoff time.

– To be included in the upcoming meal delivery, please place your first order between Thursday and the following Tuesday at 11:59pm.

– Your meals will be delivered on the following Tuesday or Wednesday. You will select your preferred delivery day when you place your one-time order.

– Once your one-time order is placed we will not be able to honor any meal selection changes for your delivery, so please choose carefully!

– If you contact us to cancel your order after your charge goes through we will refund your order less a 35% restocking fee.

To make sure we have the correct ingredients and time to prepare your dishes, we’ll need to receive your first time subscription order before the cutoff time.

– To be included in the upcoming meal delivery, please place your first order between Thursday and the following Tuesday at 11:59pm.

– Your meals will be delivered on the following Tuesday or Wednesday. You will select your preferred delivery day when you place your first time subscription order.

– Once your first subscription order is placed we will not be able to honor any meal selection changes for your delivery, so please choose carefully!

– If you contact us to cancel your order after your charge goes through we will refund your order less a 35% restocking fee.

– Every week we will email you a reminder to customize next week’s meal selections. Your customization window will be Thursday-Tuesday night at 11:59pm.

– If you forget to make your selections before the Tuesday 11:59pm cutoff time Chef Melissa will choose items for you based on the number of meals and servings from your last order.

– If you are traveling or want to miss a delivery for any reason, just select "skip shipment" in your account.

– If you contact us to cancel your order after your charge goes through we will refund your order less a 35% restocking fee.

– Every week we will email you a reminder to select your meals for the next week’s delivery. You'll be able to make your meal selections from Thursday-Tuesday night at 11:59pm.

– If you forget to make your selections before the Tuesday 11:59pm cutoff time Chef Melissa will choose items for you based on the number of meals and servings from your last order.

– If you are traveling or want to miss a delivery for any reason, just select "skip shipment" in your account.

– If you contact us to cancel your order after your charge goes through we will refund your order less a 35% restocking fee.

We have very thoughtfully selected our favorite stainless steel containers – we love them because they’re the best option for maintaining the flavor and presentation Melissa so carefully crafts each week. They're also environmentally friendly as each week they are returned to us, sterilized, and reused – eliminating one-time food packaging waste. We hope you will agree that reducing our carbon footprint through sustainable packaging is extremely important to the good of the environment and health of humans around the world.

Our Thymeless kitchen is proudly located in Santa Barbara, and we only deliver to nearby locations to make sure our fresh-made food arrives safely – looking beautiful and ready for a week of nourishment. After your order is prepared we’ll carefully “plate” each meal in an individual, sustainable metal container. Your meals will be packed together in a reusable insulated bag with frozen cooling blocks and loaded onto our Thymeless-branded delivery van. You’ll have a designated delivery day every week, and we’ll hand-deliver your order to your home or office. When you’re done with your meals, just rinse to remove food particles, store your metal containers in the insulated bag and place it on your doorstep to have it ready to be picked up during your next delivery. Leave the big cleanup to us – we’ll wash and sanitize your packaging to be reused in a future delivery.

Not all your meals will need to be heated, but for the ones that do we only recommend using an oven, including toaster ovens if they have the right heat range. We recommend placing the metal meal container on a sheet pan so it can easily be removed once hot. We do not recommend microwave cooking for two reasons – first, the inconsistency of heat warms the food unevenly and impacts texture and taste – exactly what we work so hard to preserve! Second, our stainless steel containers are metal and not microwave-safe. However, we recognize that sometimes a microwave may be the only option, or you might be in a hurry (aren't we all!). In that case you'll need to transfer any food that is in a metal container into a microwave-friendly glass or plastic container, or right onto a plate. We’ll include reheat instructions with every meal we deliver, or you can click the image of the meal on our Previous Menu page, scroll down and click “Show Heating Instructions”.