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Apple Planning To Build Private Restaurant
First time accepted submitter a90Tj2P7 writes "Apple is building a 21,468 square foot private restaurant in Cupertino so employees can talk shop over lunch without being overheard. Apple's director of real estate facilities, Dan Wisenhunt, stated that: 'We like to provide a level of security so that people and employees can feel comfortable talking about their business, their research and whatever project they're engineering without fear of competition sort of overhearing their conversations.'"
248-168. Now it will head to the Senate. Hopefully Obama vetoes it as threatened.
>apple
>research
nice try
Adele Goldberg -- "actually, i did think of that, and told you guys, but you ignored me"
Consumer - "and that democratization of information between Xerox, Apple, and Microsoft brought technology to the masses and created the computer revolution of the 80s and 90s"
Apple CEO - "and we cant have that again, because the 80s and 90s were brutal for the entrenched interests. like Xerox"
Google - "no shit. thats why you shouldnt base your fucking business model on making information secret, when your entire history has been based on borrowing ideas from other people"
I hope they serve more than just apples.
...that we are just better than everyone else.
I remember when everyone was in Bandley 3, you could just sit at the local The Good Earth restaurant and hear all kinds of chatter.
If they don't know those have microphones and cameras, they won't realize security is a waste of time.
or that you can hear everything just by the vibrations off of the windows.
be vewwy vewwy quiet, I'm hunting trilobytes.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I doubt that "so our employees can talk shop without the competition overhearing us" is their #1 reason. If it is, that's pretty arrogant.
I don't care if Apple makes all the "new hot things" that consumers are flocking to get, there's really not that much secret in what they do, and there's nothing that indicates that they have any sort of precious upper hand when it comes to designing products. Any other company could do what they do. Most of their magic is simply marketing and/or blind loyalty.
Like organized religion or politics.
-flerp
employee dorms to prevent honey trap operations.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Soon enough, employees will have to eat there..
I always see Apple employees in the nearby Panera, Boulanger, Aqui, Chipotle and other nearby restaurants. I think these employees still want to get out of work and experience some lunch variety just as I do.
And lose iPhone prototypes without being publicly embarrassed.
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
It makes you wonder if Apple is building this restaurant just so it can have a place where employees can lose their prototypes where Apple doesn't have to worry about posing as police officers to get them back...
Cue the orchard jokes in 3...2...1....
Taking a nod from their Chinese counterparts wouldn't dormitories be the next step? If workers don't leave except for vacations wouldn't it limit people leaving prototypes in restaurants and other issues that arise?
Now I just have to bug/record one place to get all the industrial espionage I need!
I've worked for big companies, and for startups. I have to say that on-campus dining facilities are pretty standard for big companies. We normally call them "cafeterias" but if you want to call it a restaurant knock yourself out.
Not to mention that Google's in-house chefs are a thing of legend. I really don't see what's news here.
I really think this is no big deal. My office has a cafeteria, and the building is "secured". It's been that way since it was built in the 80's. I realize this place will probably have better food and might be down the street but I think it's the same basic concept.
Apple has a wonderful cafeteria and a seriously epic variety of food, they are just out of space (food stations are being set up outside etc...). Makes perfect sense for them to house a larger "restaurant" (aka cafeteria) so employees don't have to head out to the local BJ's. Why is this being spun as an OMG Apple is too wealthy and splurging. Yahoo and others have freaking DMV and hairstyling services for employees (okay maybe Yahoo is not the best example here....)
* We dance where angels fear to tread *
but i think im mostly kind of right.
Seriously, many of the reasons for building in-house cafes was to allow those kinds of discussions to occur. Yet, many conversations occur outside in other restaurants. As such, they should have the dining room divided into multiple sections so that it is possible to have conversation with outsiders, but not having others listening in.
Also, they should seriously consider the idea of having multiple kitchens in it, and allow new chefs that come up with new concepts test it out there and then fund them for other restaurants if it is liked.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Applebee's is in trouble.
Bow before me, for I am root.
n/t
My company has had this thing called a MESS HALL for decades. In fact, I'm pretty sure they prepared all the food in the first year, and are just thawing it out now.
And you know if the Army is doing something, then everybody else has had it for years.
'We like to provide a level of security so that people and employees can feel comfortable...'
Sounds like a pronouncement from the Department of Homeland Security.
Slashdot. News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
begins - welcome to the new future, as spawned in Silicon Valley, where all workers will soon find themselves ensconced, enslaved, and incarcerated!
I work for a company that has an on-site restaurant/cafeteria... The food is fine and is subsidized by the company... But most people don't eat there because, really, there's only a subset of my co-workers that I feel like talking to at lunch. The rest, I don't really want to socialize with. On the one or two occasions where I've eaten at the cafeteria, there's always someone that sits down and wants to talk to me that frankly, I would rather not talk to... So we go out for lunch every day, somewhere different.. We're careful about what we discuss and usually, it's not about work anyway.
I've heard of this place where you can go to talk shop without fear of being overheard. They call it a cafeteria. Only Apple is arrogant enough to call it a private restaurant.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Back in my day, the place that your work place provides food was called a cafeteria .. not a private restaurant. Does Apple call their vending machines 'food carts' too?
Mmm... iDumpling.
And so Apple reinvented the corporate cafeteria. Strange, you'd think a company of their size would have one already.
While I'll agree with the sentiment, the numbers and rationale is a bit exaggerated. One of the great things about the area is the walkability, and food can often be found, consumed and the individual returned within half the time you quoted.
This strikes me as something that Cook would do to "seem" Jobsian, but not quite getting the point or overall Apple paradigm quite right.
www.chihuahuarescue.com- Help to end dog abuse, abandonment and cruelty
Back'in my day we called these things Cafeterias.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Apple could call the campus at Cupretino the iCompound.
They are selling real apples. Are they also bitten?
I doubt that "so our employees can talk shop without the competition overhearing us" is their #1 reason.
Your skepticism is appropriate. Apple doesn't only worry about chatter between employees and non-employees. They also worry about chatter between members of different teams within Apple. Employees working on Macs may not know anything more about that new iPhone being developed than the public.
Its been a while since my last visit to Apple but I recall signs on the wall at the cafeteria on Apple's main campus that warned employees not to chat about their work due to fears of being overheard. Again, this is the cafeteria on the main campus, in a secure building, available only to employees and invited visitors that have signed NDAs.
For copyright infringing recipes...
Apple sues pirate chefs for replicating Apple's copyrighted recipes.
Next Apple sues grandmothers for piracy for baking Apple trademarked chocolate chip cookies :P
Problem solved, declares DHS Chief Janet Napolitano.
Not surprise, indeed kind of surprised it's 1: not already the case, 2: it would raise any interest external to the enterprise concerned, In fact in house restaurants or cafes (or for the down market canteens) are pretty much De jure for most of the large research organisations I've worked for. Actually one good thing about them is it encourages conversation between areas that would normally not have communications beyond hierarchical memo passing and divisional manager meetings so, for a not entirely hypothetical example - people from the material sciences area end up talking over lunch to people from the electronic engineering area and people from the remote sensing area and so a project is born to build more resistant tidal sensors that don't need to be replaced every 3 or 4 months.
I'm betting they'll take cheap diner food, put it on fancy plates, and charge 3x more for it. Amirite?
I wondered where I can get some really good Apple Pie!
1. Walled Garden Salad
2. Beleaguered Sea Bass
3. ThaiPad
Most larger companies have one of these. It's called a cafeteria.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Manager: We're building a fancy new cafeteria, just like Google and a lot of other Si Valley companies.
Assistant: Very good sir. Shall I alert the media?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Letting people talk about secure topics while in a cafeteria that all employees are allowed in isn't security.
I'm sure they'll get around to providing security for their customers someday
... Circle Jerks Thank you.
And get them back without a huge blog leak and lawsuit.
Next week, they will be announcing the company town with company supplied housing.
Or the employees could just STFU in public, like those of every other corporation on the planet.
But maybe Apple's employees aren't presumed to be capable of discretion, seeing as they've repeatedly proven stupid enough to leave internal prototypes at random bars...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
iMcDonalds
The cafeteria The break room The watercooler A conference room, with catering A conference room, bring your own food.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
The Apple Restaurant #1 seller is simply a whopper in a new wrapper that will only cost you 14.99 + tax + applecare with no pickles or onions to spare you any chance of heartburn, and any modifications must be approved by the CEO, but may be revoked later
Have it your way!
I recall signs on the wall at the cafeteria on Apple's main campus that warned employees not to chat about their work
I worked there for three and a half years as an employee, and I've been back twice as a consultant, and I've never seen any such signs.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So Apple is building it's own canteen - what a shocker. I'd like to mod this "boring".
Either they do overhear something or they don't, whether they overhear everything is another matter all together.
I recall signs on the wall at the cafeteria on Apple's main campus that warned employees not to chat about their work
I worked there for three and a half years as an employee, and I've been back twice as a consultant, and I've never seen any such signs.
I definitely recall a sign/poster warning about chatting about unannounced projects/products where somewhere nearby can overhear you. It was 1998 or '99.
... someone nearby ...
...they're right.
Srsly. As a whole bunch of posts have said, plenty of companies have in-house cafeterias, and this is Apple's second one.
Maybe it'll save some employees the disappointment of finding out that the Little Mustard Seed isn't a sandwich shop....
Or mabey they are just sick of loosing iphone prototypes...
It sounds like a great the to encourage employees to eat together in a on-site restaurant. Many research facilities do this as well, and I believe it can help employees to exchange ideas while feeling it's a safe place to change them. And of course you save time not having to go off-site and can have longer lunch :-)
It appears that your company is running an onsite food preparation & service facility, disguised as a so-called "staff canteen", in flagrant breach of our patents.
You owe us 28 squazillion dollars.
Signed [crossed out with a crayon] Steve [/crossed out with a crayon] [written in with a crayon] Tim [/written in with a crayon]
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You're clearly not trusted enough to enter the real top-secret inner party canteen.
I've said too much. Don't be surprised if perpenso suddenly stops posti
@!. . &
no carrier
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Note to canteen manager: the phrase "eat your own dog food" is used in a metaphorical sense.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
....in house iHookers? The secret service could use these too apparently.
I am not even sure why this is news that Apple decided to build an employee cafeteria, I wonder if they are going to try and patent and succeed. Yes we know that pretty much every large company in the USA has an employee cafeteria, and we know that in some of them the employee can order their food online in the morning for a specific lunch shift to be ready right when they arrive at lunch, but I tell you non-thinking members of the patent office this is new how many can do it while talking on a mobile device? Or using a touch screen interface instead of a mouse this is novel and new ....
They are just building a goddamn canteen, people ! Move on...
They're called "company cafeterias".
Let's assume that 50% of Apple's customers are new customers. Consider the other half...
It sounds like half the customers who've bought Apple products haven't thought the product was superior enough to come back and buy another. And I would think that heavy repeat sales would be an indication that the manufacturer had superior products. I'm not as impressed by 50% of their customers being new customers (that's marketing), as I would be by 80% being repeat customers (that's brand loyalty).
Remember - if you bought a Mac fifteen years ago but never bought another Apple product, you're still an "Apple customer". You've had plenty of opportunity to go back to Apple, but haven't done so. What does that say about the product?
This always annoys me, whatever the company concerned. The distinction between 'people' and 'employees' mightn't be conscious, but it's an insidious feature of the commodification of human resources. Every time I hear a phrase like it I fear we're one step closer to the sweatshop.
While it's lovely that Apple employees are getting their own exclusive place to hang out and drink fancy drinks with umbrellas, my dark side tells me that company policy will mandate they eat there at least once a week, because research has shown that this will decrease corporate espionage by up to 20%.
Most large companies have their own restaurants. Baker Hughes, Slumberger, SAS, and BMC for example on most all of their campuses.
No, you am right the first time.
I can't believe I had to scroll down this far before someone pointed this out. "Apple to set up an employee cafeteria" is some kind of news item?
And what's worse is they already HAVE one...I've eaten there (2003), and it's called Cafe Macs:
http://www.maclife.com/article/feature/apple%E2%80%99s_corporate_food_court_o%E2%80%99_plenty_reviewed
http://g.co/maps/aqgpy
And yes, it's full of silly hippie food. Macrobiotic this and vegan that, although I will say they make awesome burritos (spinach tortilla).
With the first link, the chain is forged.
sounds like umbrella corporation type shit
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
As others have pointed out, Apple already has its own dining facilities, the Caffe Macs, with the flagship one being in Infinite Loop itself. The problem is, that with Apple's growth sprawling all over Cupertino and beyond, it's hard to find good places to meet folks from other buildings whether for lunch or otherwise. This just sounds like a recognition of the problem: (a) that the current cafeterias could no longer handle the capacity, and (b) Apple needs common meeting areas for folks across its campuses.
(Incidentally, Caffe Macs food is very good. It's not free like Google's, but tastier IMHO. Of course, YMMV.)
Sounds like an expansion of their Walled Garden approach to things. Where does it end? Will they build a little town or city that their employees and families have to live in with border checkpoints to prevent concept prototypes from being accidentally left behind in public bars?
Scheduling App for the "Rooftop View" that is!
Apple has hired many new employees at their campus in Cupertino and wants to provide them with food. But their old campus is full, and the new campus won't be ready for a couple of years. So they build a new cafeteria just around the corner.
Which makes the Apple haters go berserk with all kinds of wired fantasies about secrecy.
Will Apple have an on-campus bar for iPhone prototypes to be lost at?