San Francisco curbs virus but once-vibrant downtown is empty
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Before the pandemic, Señor Sisig food trucks were a common sight in downtown San Francisco, dishing out Filipino fusion tacos and burritos to long lines of workers who spilled out of office towers at lunch.
The trucks now are gone, forced into the suburbs because there’s practically no one around to feed in the city’s center.
As the coronavirus pandemic transforms San Francisco’s workplace, legions of tech workers have left, able to work remotely from anywhere. Families have fled for roomy suburban homes with backyards. The exodus has pushed rents in the prohibitively expensive city to their lowest in years. Tourists are scarce, and the famed cable cars sit idle.
The food trucks, like many other businesses, are wondering when things will bounce back.
“Is it ever going to get back to normal, is it ever going to be as busy as it was — and will that be next year, or in 10 years?” said Evan Kidera, CEO of Señor Sisig.
On Tuesday, more of San Francisco reopened for business after Mayor London Breed proudly declared last week that the city’s low virus case numbers allowed it to move into California’s most permissive reopening tier. That means more people can go back to the office, eat indoors at restaurants, visit museums and soon even enjoy a beer or cocktail — outdoors — at a bona fide drinks-only bar.
It is the only urban county in the state to hit this tier, joining a handful of sparsely populated rural ones.
In March, counties in the Bay Area jointly ordered their residents to stay at home, becoming the first region in the country to do so. And San Francisco itself was even slower than its neighbors to reopen restaurants, gyms and salons.
The result: San Francisco, which pre-pandemic had nearly 900,000 residents, has recorded just over 12,200 virus cases and 145 deaths, among the lowest death rates in the country. By contrast, the Southern California city of Long Beach is about half the size but has had about 900 more cases and 100 more deaths.
But the restrictions also played a role in shutting down critical elements of San Francisco’s vibrant economy — tourism, tech and the city’s main business and financial districts, packed with high-rise condos, office towers and headquarters for the likes of Twitter, Pinterest and Slack.
There are no hard figures on how many residents have left. It remains to be seen if the limited reopening will do much to repopulate the city.
“San Francisco can say, ‘Hey, it’s cool to open back up.’ But what’s changed?” tech executive Connor Fee said. “The virus is still there, and there’s no vaccine.”
Last week Fee, 38, and his partner moved out of their $ 4,000- a- month one-bedroom apartment. “We’re both extreme extroverts, so the working from home thing makes us miserable,” he said.
Figuring they could work their jobs remotely from anywhere, they bought a car, packed up the essentials — 24-inch monitors, chef’s knives, bikes and some clothes — and drove south to an Airbnb in San Diego. The plan is a string of trips and temporary stays across the country.
“When we left, we didn’t say goodbyes. We’re not planning to move forever,” Fee said. But their calendar is booked for several months at least.
Others left permanently for nearby suburbs, in search of more living space for less money.
“The spark of living in the city just kind of burned out a bit with everything being closed,” said Deme Peterson, 30, who moved across the bay to her hometown of Walnut Creek with her husband a few weeks ago. “We kind of didn’t see when
it would come back to normal.”
The restaurant industry projects half the eateries in a city consumed with innovative dining may not survive the pandemic. Some already have closed. There will be no more eggs benedict, for example, served with a view at Louis’ Restaurant, which has had a prime perch on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean since 1937.
Companies in the nation’s tech capital, where Google, Facebook and Salesforce, the city’s largest employer, have extensive office space, were quick to embrace remote working and when the lockdown came, an estimated 137,500 tech workers seemingly vanished overnight.
San Francisco’s office vacancy rate has since nearly tripled compared with December to 14.1%, the highest since 2011, said Robert Sammons, a senior researcher with commercial real estate group Cushman & Wakefield who is eager to return to his own downtown office.