South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Virus restrictions play a role in keeping heart of SF empty
— Before the pandemic, Senor 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 techworkers have left, able towork 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 inyears. 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 Senor Sisig.
On Tuesday, more of San Francisco reopened for business after Mayor London Breed declared two weeks ago that the city’s low virus case numbers allowed it to move into California’smost 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 over12,200 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