Celebrity chefs
That other place called Mountain View
WHAT’S THE best way to get people to eat at your restaurant? 1. Try a new advertising strategy. 2. Offer competitive prices and deals. 3. Serve delicious food. 4. Get the local government to stifle your competition.
You know where we’re going.
In our economy, businesses should fail or succeed by their own merits. And government shouldn’t be involved in the process beyond the necessary regulations to keep consumers safe.
So imagine our surprise when we learned of a city that has a rule on the books to prevent companies in a specific area from providing free meals to their employees. And imagine our non-surprise when we discovered the city’s location: California.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports the Bay area town of Mountain View put this requirement in place to supposedly help restaurants in its community. The 2014 rule is just now making waves because Facebook is about to move into new digs in the area.
Facebook employees are fixing to lose one of their company’s coolest perks: a free cafeteria to offer meals like fresh omelets for breakfast, hand-rolled sushi at lunch and braised chicken and kale at dinner, all created by professional chefs.
Google reportedly started the trend by hiring a chef about 20 years ago to feed employees. Workers raved, in love with their new job perk. Who wouldn’t be excited to have free food? Heck, we get excited when someone brings donuts into the office, but these people have their own cafeteria with five-star cuisine. To remain competitive (the magic of the free market!), tech companies like Facebook and LinkedIn started offering their own cafeterias for employees.
The Chronicle reports Google was also the subject of complaints from local restaurants. Business owners complained that employees didn’t come to their shops, instead choosing to eat at their free cafeterias. Can you blame them?
But the restaurant owners did what’s all too common in oh-so-mod America. They got their local government involved. Mountain View caved to their demands and created this new rule. Here’s the kicker. Facebook can still provide free lunch for its employees . . . as long as it purchases those lunches from surrounding businesses.
Nothing like local government pointing the proverbial gun at you and forcing you to buy products from the “right” businesses.
If that’s not enough, Mountain View has another slap up its sleeve for businesses that bring thousands of jobs to its community. More from the Chronicle:
“Mountain View has been seeking other concessions from tech giants. A November ballot measure proposes a per-employee tax that would hit Google the hardest. Last year, a new Google campus called Charleston East will be partially open to the public, including restaurants that anyone can dine in.”
The town should hang a sign advertising for new businesses. “Mountain View: We control what benefits your company can offer, and we offer custom taxes designed to hit your business hardest.”
Facebook doesn’t need this. It could come to Arkansas. This state offers coding classes offered in every high school, and most folk here would be ecstatic to have you—and your cafeterias. Now that’s something we would certainly “like.”