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A Look at Silicon Valley Cafeterias
boycottthecaf writes "The San Jose Mercury News has a story on the cafeterias of Silicon Valley companies, and how they are used to keep workers on site during lunch. Google, of course, has the cafeteria everyone envies."
By Nicole C. Wong
Mercury News
For many Silicon Valley employees, there's a pecking order to valley companies. And it has nothing to do with sales or size.
It's all about the food.
For years, Silicon Valley companies have invested in their cafeterias to cut the time workers spend foraging off-campus for food, boost camaraderie and keep the troops happy, or at least well-fueled. Now some cafes are such hot spots that discerning diners from other companies are clamoring to eat there.
``Apple's the best,'' said Joseph Ruff, a programmer at Mountain View start-up TellMe Networks. ``The egg burritos, they make them nice and spicy. Network Appliance -- that had a pretty good salad bar, but it was smaller than Apple's.''
Want navrattan korma with raita, chutney and naan? $5.29 at Cisco Systems. Need something to drink? Sun Microsystems stocks 20 flavors of Odwalla juices alone. Feeling guilty? Yahoo boasts sustainably harvested seafood and antibiotic-free chicken.
Marc Marelich, eBay's general manager of food services, often sees outsiders slipping in to eat at the new cafe. And no wonder -- they can get ahi tuna salad tossed on the spot, spicy Tunisian chili with lamb and beef, or Yucatan fish tacos with pico de gallo.
At San Jose semiconductor maker Atmel, which a few years ago decided not to construct its own cafe, employees have found a prized alternative to brown-bagging it. Sales reps, engineers and even the chief financial officer cross the street to eat at BEA Systems' Tuxedo Junction Cafe. One Atmel engineer dines there so often -- three or four times a week -- that a cashier mistakenly gives him the 10 percent discount for BEA employees.
John Lawn, editor in chief of Food Management magazine, said Silicon Valley's corporate cafe scene serves some of the best food in the country. ``You'll find a cafe that's as nice as any commercial restaurant in Chicago or San Francisco, maybe better,'' he said.
Of course, you'll also find some that are worse.
Amy Flores, spokeswoman for Agilent Technologies, offered this opinion of Agilent's cafe: ``All I know is it's sometimes good, and it's sometimes bad.''
And last year, Intel decided that too many employees were avoiding lunch at the company's dining hall, which facilities planning manager Mike Dowd described as ``battleship gray'' with menu offerings ``maybe a notch above hospital and school cafeterias.''
So the cafe splashed its ceiling with paint the color of nacho cheese and revamped the menu to include inari and ebi sushi. It also lowered prices.
Now, Dowd said, ``We have more employees who are willing to have their friends come over to our house to eat, rather than go to theirs.''
Google, by far, has become Silicon Valley's most sizzling lunch site -- as elusive as French Laundry, the Wine Country restaurant where would-be patrons must call two months in advance to get a seat. Ruff, the 39-year-old TellMe programmer, has been begging a college buddy who works at Google to bring him as a lunch guest for the past year.
Google employees must make online reservations 24 hours in advance to bring visitors to the cafe. And they are limited to two guests each month, since all the lunches and dinners are free.
Google's executive chef, Charlie Ayers, cooked for members of the Grateful Dead in the early '90s. He orchestrates a 100-plus staff and announces the day's eating options only an hour before lunch. ``That's how we keep them on campus -- have that element of surprise,'' he said.
It seems to work. On an average day, 85 percent of Googlers eat at the cafe, compared with 50 percent at other valley companies.
Eric Case, a 25-year-old blogger product specialist at Google, finds that all of a sudden, his friends want to dine with him. ``They'll e-mail, `Hey, do you want to have lunch sometime next week?' What that means is, `Can I eat at Google?' ''
Broadcom counts on a
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kokkr0
Username and password so you odn't have to give over your DNA
I think whoever submits a story that requires registration to read, should also provide their username and password so we all can read the story.
Do eBay employees have to place bids for their meals?
...are an excellent indicator, in my experience, of the success of a company. For instance, I used to work at Nortel (Nortel.ca), one of Canada's premier hihg-tech companies during the bubble.
During the bubble, the cafeteria was practically giving away food. Actually, they were doing precisely that -- many days during the week your lunch would be paid for. One could also go down at any time and pick up soda fountain drinks for free. This, like so many things (like the free massage parlor) were not to last...
As Nortel's profits declined, so did the number of different food stalls in the cafeteria. Similarly, I couldn't even go down to pick up a glass of soda water -- the company stopped giving it away. In fact, the ice water cooler was likewise turned off. The breakrooms were stripped of their free coffee and tea (and hot chocolate, *sigh*). And their water coolers were removed. And then the styrofoam cups (and their subsequent paper brethern faced a similar fate). Then they got rid of the plates and plastic forks and spoons. Finally, when the free sugar sachets left, so did I.
I guess I can finally say I am what I ate -- unemployed.
Silicon Valley sucks for lunch. Seriously, it takes about 90 minutes to fight through noontime trafficjams and get to a deli for a sandwitch and then back to work. The glories of these cafaterias are just a testament to what a stinking suburban anal shithole the whole place is. Yaaah, you get a free/cheap lunch, but you also get the pleasure of staying in your cube for 9 hours straight. Say hey for wage slavery.
Who cares if their working me 14 hours a day without overtime and I haven't seen my family in 3 months. With perks like a nice cafeteria, it's all worth it.
Sad thing is that most people probably have to use that cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner since may comapnies that provide such things also mandate a 50 hr work week minimum. Don't know about anybody else, but I'd trade those benefits anyday for good pay and a chance to be out after 7 1/2 to 8 hrs.
Apparently, you need invites to go their cafeteria.