Housebites is a UK food delivery company with a twist: for an extra £5 you can have the dirty pans and utensils delivered to your door so you can arrange them around the kitchen when guests arrive. They think you’ll have done all the work. It’s pretty cool.

The idea came from customers simply asking over Twitter and Facebook to keep the pans for a few hours while they had guests over so that they could pretend to their guests that they did all the work. Its a small add-on, but frankly, quite an excellent one. From their press release:

Housebites.com, the takeaway service that delivers restaurant quality food has today announced a service called ‘pretend you cooked’ that allows customers to pretend they have slaved away at a hot stove more convincingly by delivering dirty pans alongside the food. Cooked by a professional chef and delivered to your door, Housebites main courses cost on average between £10 and £12, and now for an additional £5, customers can request the pans used to cook them for added authenticity. Collection of the pans is then arranged as easily as the original delivery slot.

The ‘dirty pans’ concept emerged on Twitter and Facebook after requests for the service were received through tweets, comments and email feedback
The ‘pretend you cooked’ option will be available when users select their delivery slot and confirm their order
Selected postcodes will receive the service during the trial period
There is a £2.50 refund for those willing to ‘wash up’ before handing back the pans
Housebites has experienced fast-growing demand since its launch late last year, with celebrity customers such as Stephen Fry and Lily Allen tweeting about their orders.