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Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

businessinsider.com

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Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#411

Post by vzaliva »

Cracking down on cafeterias might bring some business to the restaurants, but it takes away business from people running these cafeterias: cooks, cleaning staff, grocery delivery, etc. Most of these people are local. So it is basically re-distribution of income between two different groups of Mountain View residents and as such is pretty pointless, economically.

P.S. I work at MTV area and finding parking at lunch is already a challenge. With the influx of Facebook lunchgoers, it will become impossible to park in downtown.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#412

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

a5seo wrote: post #339
BurningFrog wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit of a company cafeteria is mostly that you don't lose half an hour walking to a restaurant, waiting in line, ordering etc. It's not about the money.

This. This is the giant disconnect between muni govnerment planners and tech. They literally cannot fathom that people in tech are trying to squeeze the most from every minute in the day. Just. Do. Not. Get. It.

> squeeze the most from every minute

Don't do that. It hurts. You.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#413

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

michaelkeenan wrote: post #276
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98

> The ban wouldn't be retroactive, however, so on-site food at companies like Google and Twitter would still be available Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents. (Does anyone know the story behind this bill? Which politicians and restaurants supported it? I’d like to avoid the latter going forward.)

It looks like the Golden Gate Restaurant Association endorsed it[0]. I couldn't find a list of which restaurants are members of the GGRA, but the board of directors[1] includes people from the Bluestem Brasserie, San Francisco Soup Company, Ladle and Leaf, Extreme Pizza, Rose's Cafe, Wayfare Tavern, Souvla, Canela, Palm House, The Dorian, and Perry's. [0] https://sf.eater.com/2018/7/25/17614570/san-francisco-corpor..…

This is such a shitty move, FAANG should buy all of them, and then just shut them down for good.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#414

Post by Ntrails »

BurningFrog wrote: post #329
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents. They could just do something similar to what colleges do: - increase salaries just a bit - but the increased salary goes to a food card - employees can't easily turn this into cash - you swipe it and "pay" - the company is essentially paying for the employee's food Money changes hands, but no one is at a net loss than what a free food perk would cost…

The benefit of a company cafeteria is mostly that you don't lose half an hour walking to a restaurant, waiting in line, ordering etc. It's not about the money.

> The benefit of a company cafeteria is mostly that you don't lose half an hour walking to a restaurant, waiting in line, ordering etc.

Instead you can spend that time being both grateful and productive

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#415

Post by adrianN »

closeparen wrote: post #347
st26 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine your local city bus is so unpleasant to be called a dystopian hellscape.

While I was a BART commuter, I walked a gauntlet of slumped-over hard drug users, sprawled-out homeless people, human urine, and feces every day. Fortunately, I've only seen people drop their pants and take a shit on the sidewalk in front of me twice. Missed a random stabbing on the stairwell into my station by about 5 minutes. This is Civic Center Station, which serves Twitter, Uber, and Square. No amount of tech wo…

That's not an inherent problem of public transit. It's just a symptom of failing to take care of poor people in your society. Try taking public transit in a civilized country like Germany or Japan.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#416

Post by fooker »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98

> The ban wouldn't be retroactive, however, so on-site food at companies like Google and Twitter would still be available Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents. (Does anyone know the story behind this bill? Which politicians and restaurants supported it? I’d like to avoid the latter going forward.)

>I’d like to avoid the latter going forward.

Awesome idea, thanks!

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#417

Post by ThePadawan »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #325
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents. They could just do something similar to what colleges do: - increase salaries just a bit - but the increased salary goes to a food card - employees can't easily turn this into cash - you swipe it and "pay" - the company is essentially paying for the employee's food Money changes hands, but no one is at a net loss than what a free food perk would cost…

Why jump through all those hoops, instead of stopping at "increase salaries"?

Depending on legislature, it can be a win-win situation.

Example: Currently living in Switzerland, which has "Lunch cheques" [0]. Employees don't pay income tax on their value, employers don't pay social security on their value, local restaurants/takeaways get more customers.

[0] https://www.lunch-check.ch/en

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#418

Post by SSLy »

afarrell wrote: post #398
michaelkeenan wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like the Golden Gate Restaurant Association endorsed it[0]. I couldn't find a list of which restaurants are members of the GGRA, but the board of directors[1] includes people from the Bluestem Brasserie, San Francisco Soup Company, Ladle and Leaf, Extreme Pizza, Rose's Cafe, Wayfare Tavern, Souvla, Canela, Palm House, The Dorian, and Perry's. [0] https://sf.eater.com/2018/7/25/17614570/san-francisco-corpor..…

If the goal is to help restaurants, wouldn't a better approach be to build more housing so that: 1) There are more people in the areas with offices who are around to eat dinner. Therefore, restaurants aren't so dependent on the lunch money of office workers. 2) Restaurant workers can get cheaper rent and therefore restaurants can find staff more easily.

Not in their SF.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#420

Post by hocuspocus »

jartelt wrote: post #357
jackconnor wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel what you're saying, and that definitely is something that happens. Especially for people who move for the job, it's very easy to keep oneself separate from the community. But making it illegal to feed your employees is a very stupid, very authoritarian way of dealing with it that feels like a terrible idea. I don't want to be told where to shop, ever, for any reason, and I dislike that these local governments…

If you build an office in the middle of a city, sometimes you need to be part of the city... The employees can always bring a lunch to work if they don't want to spend money going out to restaurants. Yes, it would suck if you expected free food and got stuck at this FB office. But, it would also suck if Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale became full of offices and private cafeterias and lost all essence of a "do…

> But, it would also suck if Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale became full of offices and private cafeterias and lost all essence of a "downtown". I mean Palo Alto is already full of Palantir buildings.

As an outsider who never lived in the US, I think they are already well beyond saving. At least this isn't my idea of a "downtown". It's not like you can somehow rekindle social diversity in those cities at this point. Outside of tech workers, almost nobody can afford living there. I believe most of these restaurant employees wouldn't mind working at a private cafeteria instead.

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