Village Foods meal delivery expands toward Live Oak storefront after rapid rise

A Santa Cruz mom’s meal delivery service is growing quickly by tackling a common challenge for families – what to eat for dinner. 

Last spring, Kelly Langstaff, a former product marketing manager for tech companies with a lifelong passion for cooking, was inspired to start a business that could provide busy community members – especially parents like herself – with nourishing meals. 

The idea took hold a year ago after Langstaff dropped off roasted salmon, rice and soup to a friend who had a 2-month-old baby. The meal train and extra help that often come from friends and family when a baby is first born were long gone by that point, she said. Langstaff’s exhausted friend was so grateful for the food. 

“That’s when you need the help, when the parents start to go back to work, and it doesn’t get easier. Everyone is busy,” said Langstaff. Borrowing from the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child,” she named her service Village Foods. “We could be the village,” she said. 

Delivery services for prepared meals or meal kits with ingredients that are cooked at home have become popular nationwide over the past decade. In 2024, a report from Straits Research valued the industry at $25.79 billion, and expected it to quadruple within the next 10 years to more than $113 billion. Americans are turning to prepared meals to save time, and perceive home-cooked meals as healthier and less wasteful than ordering delivery from restaurants. 

Langstaff is capitalizing on the national trend locally, with a focus on nourishing meals that feel as though they were made by a friend, and on the ability for customers to personalize their orders based on what they want to eat that week rather than a set menu. Delivering on Mondays allows people to jumpstart their week with a fridge full of food, she said. 

That turned out to be a critical step. “We actually became something dependable, a real pillar that people could count on,” Langstaff said. 

Here’s how it works: On Tuesday, Langstaff releases on her website an à la carte menu of four to five entrees, around a dozen robust proteins and side dishes and a few breakfast items and desserts. She develops the menu based on what she wants to eat, what’s in season and popular past menu items, while considering nutrition and cost, among other factors. 

Customers choose what they want to reach the $75 minimum and make their purchase by Friday. Langstaff and a crew of prep cooks make the meals throughout the weekend at a commercial kitchen in Scotts Valley, and on Monday, a team of drivers drops off each order on doorsteps across the county. 

In mid-March, I got home from work and opened the ice chest I left on my doorstep to find takeout containers full of food, carefully packaged and labeled. I wasn’t sure if this service would be for me — I like to cook, and I have high expectations for food prepared outside of my home. But my meals weren’t just good — they were flavorful and interesting. That evening, my husband and I devoured grilled tri-tip with zucchini, bell peppers with herby rice ($36 for two large portions). I ate the kicky and crunchy Thai chicken salad bowl ($18) the next night. 

The rest of my order provided standout mix-and-match lunches throughout the week: I’d toss a few chicken pesto meatballs ($14 for eight) over salty, nutty broccoli farro salad ($10 for 16 ounces) or addictive miso maple sweet potatoes ($10 for 16 ounces). It lasted longer than I thought it would – I finally polished the last meatballs off that Friday over extra herby rice and homemade lentils. 

Throughout the week, I appreciated the extra time I was able to spend with my family, and the extra space in my brain usually filled with dinner plans and grocery lists. I thought the amount of food was a good value compared to purchasing and preparing groceries. 

Other customers appear to appreciate the service as well. Orders at Village Food have tripled since the beginning of the year, Langstaff said, and every week she receives more orders than the week before. Typically, around 75% of her customers come back the following week, she said. “Pretty much everybody who orders, orders again. Anyone who tries it, tries it all the time,” she said. 

Less than a year on, Langstaff is preparing to move Village Foods from a rented kitchen into its own storefront in Live Oak. She took over the space on East Cliff Drive that previously held restaurants Evarista’s Comal and Star Bene and next door to the Windmill Café. She plans to use it to prepare meal deliveries and offer grab-and-go items to people who stop in during the week. It will also have a small market with Langstaff’s favorite artisan grocery items and picnic supplies to take to the beach. 

She’s shooting to open the doors by May 10 – Mother’s Day, in honor of Village Foods’ one-year anniversary. 

Village Foods’ rise is even more remarkable given the backdrop of Langstaff’s personal life. After working in marketing in the tech industry for 15 years, she was fired suddenly from her job in early 2025. That same week, she found out she was pregnant with her second baby, her beloved grandmother passed away and her husband suffered a serious knee injury. 

Although her life had quickly changed, Langstaff had to admit to herself that she wasn’t happy at her old job.  

“I had gotten everything that looked so good on paper, and it still didn’t feel good. It still didn’t work,” she said. “I could not go back [to working in tech]. I couldn’t put the mask on again.” 

Langstaff said she couldn’t have founded Village Foods without support from her own village – her husband, parents, in-laws and friends who have helped take care of her 3-year-old and 3-month-old children, donated time to package meals and made deliveries. While starting a business is demanding, it also gives her the flexibility to bring her toddler to work if needed, or take a business call with her newborn strapped to her chest, she said. 

It’s good stress, said Langstaff, and when she’s feeling run-down, appreciative messages from customers give her purpose.

“I’ll get a little text that’s like, ‘I’m a special needs mom, and this has changed my life. I’m finally able to have time for myself,’” Langstaff said. “It seems so simple, like such a little thing, but the little things are the big things.”

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