Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by dunpeal » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:37 PM UTC

DeepYogurt wrote: post #131

justinzollars wrote: post #114

I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.

If all tech workers went out for lunch every day that would be a huge boon to the local low skill labor market.

So over 20,000 employees would leave the Googleplex every day at noon to get lunch?

This just means the next massive campus complex will not open in Mountain View. Big profitable companies and their hordes of tax paying employees will go elsewhere, and definitely will not be supporting MTV's local businesses.

Welcome to the wonderful world of unintended consequences!

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

#142

Post by dunpeal » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

tidon12 wrote: post #138

Vordax wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about all the employees that work in the cafeterias at Facebook?

This is the real point. The idea that somehow the catering business serving startups or the kitchen workers in cafes are somehow less worthy of support than owners of restaurants

To be fair, there are a lot of efficiency gains and economies of scale involved.

Google pays a lot less to provide an employee with a nutritious, healthy meal than the same employee would be paying for a less healthy meal in your typical local restaurant.

So this law will create more local jobs in the short term... except the next Techplex will not be built in MTV, which will lose it far more local jobs than it gained.

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

#143

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:40 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #137

bumholio wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an alternative could be 'they buy up all the restaurants in the area and make them exclusively available for FB staff'. If Facebook is willing to pay substantial amounts of money for a restaurant, while at the same time guaranteeing customers to those who refuse to sell, it would seem the number of public restaurants in the area will explode.

Not if most of the people in the area, or even a decent chunk of them, work at Facebook. If there are ten restaurants and one of them is pretty much the default choice for 25% of the people, that leaves the rest of the restaurants with an effective 75% of the market, which shrinks their customer base quite a lot.

The other customers are still there. Facebook's office is replacing old retail space, which is not much used on weekdays either. This will only increase traffic to those restaurants even without forcing Facebook to send all its employees their way.

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

#144

Post by rconti » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:41 PM UTC

dev_dull wrote: post #79

These cities really are trying their hardest to kill their golden goose.

This is not "trying their hardest". This is a possibly-misguided effort to slightly restrict their ability to offer one tiny perk.

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

#145

Post by FLUX-YOU » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:42 PM UTC

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.)

>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.

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

#146

Post by rtkwe » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:46 PM UTC

tidon12 wrote: post #138

Vordax wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about all the employees that work in the cafeterias at Facebook?

This is the real point. The idea that somehow the catering business serving startups or the kitchen workers in cafes are somehow less worthy of support than owners of restaurants

Restaurants do have some added benefits over just a catering business though and those are mentioned in the article. Restaurants bring foot traffic to areas that other shops can benefit from where a catering business doesn't.

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

#147

Post by sampo » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:47 PM UTC

justinzollars wrote: post #114

I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.

> As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion.

As far as I understand, the prevailing policy is doing the exact opposite on all those three.

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

#148

Post by jotux » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:47 PM UTC

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.)

The title could almost be: "Large tech companies lobby local officials to allow them to offer exclusive employment benefits."

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

#149

Post by arebop » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:47 PM UTC

satsuma wrote: post #12

as someone who works in a place a solid few miles from restaurants, and has a break room with a few microwaves/a toaster oven as well as a vending machine with gas station tier food... how common are workplace cafeterias like this? is it just sv megacompanies or is it smaller firms across the country?

It's pretty much unheard of. Large companies will frequently have cafeterias and they may be partially subsidized but it's very rare that they would be 0 cost to employees.

Also, the quality of ingredients and the creativity and care in preparation and presentation is significantly better than I've seen elsewhere, although the executive dining room at global HQ for one of the companies I worked for did rival Facebook or Google's typical cafe experience.

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

#150

Post by spike021 » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 10:48 PM UTC

marzell wrote: post #127

tzs wrote: post #74

I was not surprised when I read the headline, but I was surprised when I saw the reason when I read the article. I had expected it would be over taxes. From the photos and description in the article and elsewhere, it looks like you can get full meals for free, meals that would cost at least $10 if bought at retail. An employee who took two meals a day at the free company cafeteria every working day would be getting a…

$10 for a full meal (not including tax and tip) is probably unrealistically low for the bay area. State and city minimum wages are increasing (SF is $14/hr and they have other mandates like healthcare coverage) so food and restaurant prices are going up (many meals seem to be in the $12-15 range, approaching $20 w/ tips). Many restaurants are closing, and are exploring alternate business practices, like pop-up stores…

Not sure where you're getting those numbers in your first paragraph (other than the minimum wage increases).

I live and work in the downtown part of San Jose, and on some days of the week work in downtown SF (SoMa near Caltrain).

I rarely spend $12-15 (more so in SJ but also in SF). Usually the significant cost is adding a soft drink of some sort (soda, juice, tea, etc.) because I'm finding restaurants are increasing the price of those for whatever reason ($2.50 at some).

Definitely wouldn't say $10 for a full meal is "unrealistically low". Perhaps it's really a matter of choice. Some people prefer to get lunch often from New American restaurants and similar where you need to tip, etc. Some don't mind going to simpler places like a taco truck around the corner, or Panera Bread/Chipotle/etc. (although I will easily admit Panera's cost has increasingly gotten more expensive, as you describe).