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San Francisco Officials Are Planning To Ban Corporate Cafeterias, Force Tech Workers To Eat Out At Local Restaurants (nytimes.com)
"According to The New York Times, San Francisco officials are planning to ban corporate cafeterias to force tech workers to eat out at local eateries," writes Slashdot reader The Original CDR. Here's an excerpt from the report: Two San Francisco supervisors introduced an ordinance last week that would forbid employee cafeterias in new corporate construction. It is not clear whether the measure will pass, but it is a direct attack on one of the modern tech industry's most entrenched traditions. The ordinance, which seeks to force tech workers out of their subsidized cafeterias and into neighborhood restaurants, is the latest attempt by San Francisco leaders to make the tech companies that are migrating north from Silicon Valley adapt to life in the city.
"These tech companies have decided to leave their suburban campuses because their employees want to be in the city, and yet the irony is, they come to the city and are creating isolated, walled-off campuses," said Aaron Peskin, a city supervisor who is co-sponsoring the bill with Ahsha Safai. "This is not against these folks, it's for them. It's to integrate them into the community." Mr. Peskin's ordinance is also aimed at getting more out of a tax deal given to tech companies that would agree to move into a troubled area called Mid-Market. In 2011, the companies were given tax breaks on payroll and stock options with the hope that they would bring jobs and investment to the neighborhood, just a short walk from San Francisco's City Hall. Within a few years, a number of companies like Twitter, Square and Uber moved into Mid-Market. But despite initial excitement over the opening of a number of restaurants and shops, the neighborhood has not yet flourished the way many had hoped. Further reading: San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle
"These tech companies have decided to leave their suburban campuses because their employees want to be in the city, and yet the irony is, they come to the city and are creating isolated, walled-off campuses," said Aaron Peskin, a city supervisor who is co-sponsoring the bill with Ahsha Safai. "This is not against these folks, it's for them. It's to integrate them into the community." Mr. Peskin's ordinance is also aimed at getting more out of a tax deal given to tech companies that would agree to move into a troubled area called Mid-Market. In 2011, the companies were given tax breaks on payroll and stock options with the hope that they would bring jobs and investment to the neighborhood, just a short walk from San Francisco's City Hall. Within a few years, a number of companies like Twitter, Square and Uber moved into Mid-Market. But despite initial excitement over the opening of a number of restaurants and shops, the neighborhood has not yet flourished the way many had hoped. Further reading: San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle
You need to try some of the cafeterias at the Silicon Valley companies. These aren't Sudexo pieces of shit. They have real chefs and actual food. I know at Facebook in addition to 2 cafeterias they had a burger shack, a pizza place, a noodle soup place, a salad place, a barbecue place, and frequent popups. And that was just the main campus, not the sattelites. The food tends to be pretty good, and if it doesn't do it for you the daily places work.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Why stop there, indeed?
The Examiner quotes Supervisor Peskin saying
“People will have to go out and eat lunch with the rest of us”
Given that San Francisco is famous for the amount of human faces on the streets I'd say they should also ban restrooms in office buildings so people will have to go out and poop on the streets "with the rest of us"
The turn around time for lunch is usually shorter. You walk down to the cafeteria. You grab lunch, eat it and are back at your desk inside the allotted lunch window. If you have to go out, then the travel time is up, there is weather to contend with, lines, its more of a hassle.
The tech companies have made the decision that providing lunch is a bennie and it keeps people inside the bubble longer. If San Fransisco passes the "no cafeteria" regs, expect the corporate offices to rent food trucks on a rotation to stop in front of their office, seven days a week. The press on the local food establishments will be insane. People don't want to integrate into the community, they want to work and go home. Forcing them to go out for take out just annoys them.
San Fransisco has a lot of growing up to do: They have to come to terms if they want the big companies to be in town, they need to build at least 100,000 more apartment units, quickly. And those will get snapped up in about 30 seconds with people screaming for more. Watching the city slowly destroy itself with the: "But we don't want to build anymore units because it will change the city" get trampled by the stratospheric rent rates has been fun to watch from a far distance.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
"The implication here is citizens are too stupid to make their own decisions"
uh... did they not vote a clown in that thinks just exactly this? Apparently even the citizens themselves believe they are too stupid to make their own decisions. It seems to me that Peskin is just reflecting what his voters want. I believe that is his job as their elected, right?
governments are a reflection of its people. A truth many people will refuse to their very graves, very much to their detriment.
Because that's how our system of government works. Last I checked Congress hadn't regulated cafeterias within corporate buildings and so that ability to do so devolves, first to States, and then on down the chain of command there.
I am not making a value judgment on SF choosing to regulate corporate cafeterias. If they want to let them. The voters there in SF can decide if they like it or not. While it is true that Congress has not regulated cafeterias at the federal level, they do regulate immigration. So, in the way that a company operating in SF is a constituent of SF and subject to the applicable laws and regulations, SF is a constituent of the United States and subject to the applicable laws and regulations. In this case, Congress has constitutional authority to pass legislation related to immigration and the executive branch has a constitutional authority and responsibility to enforce those laws. The position that SF (and other local and state governments) take of obstructing the enforcement of those laws is just that: obstruction. I suspect that if a company in SF denied enforcement officials access to their corporate campus on humanitarian grounds, SF city officials will not be amused.
I work right in the 'meat' of Mid-Market and a third problem is that most of the restaurants that have opened in the area are 'concept' restaurants that a semi-famous local chef sinks a couple million bucks into, which results in the average lunch costing 25 bucks. Cavernous restaurants like that have shuttered at a pretty quick pace over the past couple years because they don't know how to cater to the techie lunch crowd. Meanwhile, Little Griddle, Ananda Fura (sp? I don't eat veggies), Sam's, The Market on Market and even the Subways in the area thrive. The food trucks at Soma Straet Food are often crowded as long as it's not rainy, and people have to walk a ways to get there.
Hopefully these big, prominent failures will start to give restauranteurs a clue about how to appeal to us nerds. When you're competing with free or subsidized food, you have to be different, fast, and reasonably priced (by San Francisco standards.) Nobody cares about your wine list (Dirty Water) or microbrew (that French place whose name escapes me.) Both those places were good for an occasional fancy lunch, but I'm not spending $25 on food every day, nor is anyone that works in the area.
I live a 10-15 minute walk away from Twitter HQ. Humans shitting on the street here really is a thing. You also often have to hold your breath until you start turning blue, lest you inhale the gag inducing stench of stale urine.
Just yesterday I went up the street to grab an afternoon coffee and on my way back saw a crazy person staggering around in the middle of the busy street trying to pull their (couldn't determine if was man or woman) pants up. About ten yards later I saw what that person had left on the sidewalk out the front of a bank - a huge pile of semi-solid, semi-liquid shit.
You can regularly see junkies openly shooting up on the street or passed out on the sidewalk with needles sticking out of their arms while the police just walk on by.
If you dare to question why nothing is being done to clean up the place you are labelled a bad person. I've been to 3rd world countries that are cleaner and have more civic pride.
San Francisco is like hell on earth and that's why I'm leaving this overpriced shithole in under 24 hours. I've been here for four years and I've had it with the whacko's who "run" the place and the people who vote them in.
I was making big dollars, but even if I had Jeff Bezos-level "fuck you" wealth I wouldn't choose to live in San Francisco,
Aaron Peskin is my local Supervisor. He's a petty little alcoholic manlet and the embodiment of the sheer lunacy of Bay Area progressivism/Democrats.
I think your scheme would backfire, at the moment they are mostly paternalistic. I think your scheme would make them outright classist.
If you want to teach your kids empathy with the lower classes have them do some physical blue collar work, the working class is the better class of the lower class.
This. When I eat lunch, I care about 3 things: Speed, price, amount. Taste comes in as a close fourth, but the quality level "edible" is sufficient for a lunch place to see me again. But I only have a limited amount of time at my disposal, so optimally my lunch is already ready when I decide I want it. It should be reasonably priced so that it's not more sensible for me to bring my own stuff. And it should be sufficient to last 'til dinner.
Our campus cafeteria offers exactly that. Nothing fancy, nothing that you'll come back for seconds for, but it's ready when I get there (because they cook permanently through lunch time), the price is all right and it's filling.
Plus, as an added bonus, your company is VERY interested in you not getting sick to your stomach from the grub because people who vomit don't work.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm liberal, live & work in San Francisco and I'm worried that the city is going to shit (literally) while our city 'government' stands by and fills the pockets of its friends (campaign contributors).
Eliminate them entirely for a voucher system that covers everyone.
Vouchers do not eliminate public schools. Where education vouchers have been implemented, 80-90% of students stay in the public schools. The threat of losing students (and revenue) causes the public schools to rapidly improve, and since they have the advantage of pre-existing infrastructure (buildings, teachers, curriculum, etc.) they usually end up keeping most of the students.