No more free lunch for tech employees?
San Francisco mulls outlawing perk to help neighborhood restaurants
SAN FRANCISCO – Food, glorious (and free) food, that classic tech company perk, may soon be off the menu here.
Two city supervisors have introduced legislation that would halt the installation of nonretail cafeterias in office buildings, a measure aimed at encouraging legions of workers to patronize often struggling neighborhood eateries.
If the proposal gains traction this fall, it would not retroactively affect San Francisco-based companies such as Twitter and Uber that already offer employees free chef-prepared chow.
Nor would the measure prevent future startups from setting up in-house kitchens, although they would have to charge employees for meals, which in turn may encourage them to sometimes spend that money with local merchants.
The new proposal is part of a growing pushback against some of the less popular byproducts of the technology juggernaut that has invaded the San Francisco Bay Area over the past decade.
Unpopular side effects include skyrocketing housing prices, fleets of giant commuter buses clogging city streets, and, most recently, an electric-scooter invasion that caused city officials to temporarily yank them off the streets.
While cafeterias at tech companies in sprawling suburban areas might make sense, that approach is incongruous with operating in an urban environment, says city supervisor Ahsha Safai, who co-sponsored the legislation with supervisor Aaron Peskin.
“We’re in the process of entitling 6 million square feet of new office space, so it’s the right time to ensure that the vibrancy of our neighborhoods is preserved,” says Safai, an urban planner by training. “San Francisco has a rich history of culinary expertise and cuisine. We’re not talking about taking away a perk. You can still provide it, through vouchers or food accounts or catering. There are lots of ways to enhance and support the local economy.”
Anthony Myint is co-owner of The Perennial, a sophisticated eatery that features Aquaponic Kale and McFarland Springs Trout not far from headquarters of Twitter and Uber south of the city’s bustling financial district.
He was hopeful that the presence of thousands of well-paid young professionals would be a boon to his establishment. But instead, he says, he has struggled to stay afloat while others
“Lunch specifically has been a struggle, and many of these restaurants either are forced to close or get creative.”
Gwyneth Borden, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association
floundered. “Around eight restaurants within two blocks of here, some with Michelin-rated chefs, have all closed, and we’re struggling to make ends meet,” Myint says.
“This (new law) is just a response to a bomb dropping on our neighborhoods. I don’t think this is what the city had in mind when they offered tech companies tax breaks to lure them here,” he says, referring to temporary payroll breaks offered to tech companies who relocated to the blighted mid-Market area by late mayor Ed Lee.
The area around Perennial could use a flood of cash-toting employees. The sidewalks are not humming, and what few pedestrians there are share space with the city’s homeless.
Twitter’s building, the former Western Furniture Exchange, features a public supermarket on the ground floor as well as an in-house cafeteria that features specialties of the day and caters to a range of tastes, from paleo to vegetar- ian to comfort food.
Across the street, there’s a credit union, a Starbucks, a hostel and an idling burrito truck. Uber’s building is even more stark, with no ground floor restaurants and shops.
One can easily see the appeal of creating an in-house oasis that offers meals: It’s a chance for workers to stay on the clock longer and collaborate together, and it has become a standard perk for recruiting and retaining indemand tech workers.
But sending those same employees into the neighborhood could revitalize it, city officials and restaurant owners argue.
Across this city there are 51 private cafeterias offering free food, most of them at tech companies, says Gwyneth Borden, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, adding those operations are cutting into the livelihoods of some 64,000 people who work in the 5,000-plus eateries that dot this foodie town.
“Lunch specifically has been a struggle, and many of these restaurants either are forced to close or get creative,” says Borden, noting that some of them turn their eateries during the day into co-working spaces, while others get into the delivery business. “But it’s tough. The benefit (to neighborhood businesses) of luring these tech companies isn’t being realized.”
Twitter, Uber, Facebook and other
big companies declined comment on the proposed no-freefood measure. And some major tech firms take a different approach to gratis grub: For example, Apple charges its employees for food, while Amazon offers only in-house break rooms in order to steer its staff into the community.
Jennifer Stojkovic, executive director of sf.citi, a protech advocacy group, says banning companies from feeding employees for free isn’t the right solution.
“We acknowledge the intent behind the measure but consider the significant impact that is brought to the city by high-quality, high-wage jobs in the food service sector by our member companies,” she says.
San Francisco isn’t the the only city to grapple with the boom in corporate cafeterias. In some cases, they’ve welcomed the in-house lunch spots. Take the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View, home to Google’s sprawling campus just east of the 101 freeway. Without the lure of free meals – and with no alternate way to get to the city’s center – thousands of Google employees likely would take to their cars in search of food around their headquarters’ suburban sprawl.
“That would just be terrible for traffic and for the environment, so we are glad they have a place to eat right there,” says Mountain View city councilman John McAlister, whose council instead is promoting a head tax on companies that would mostly would go to transportation improvements.
But in contrast, when Facebook soon adds another 2,000 employees in a new office in Mountain View, there will be restrictions on feeding that crowd.
In 2014, McAlister says the company leasing space at the Village at San Antonio Center stipulated that tenants would be banned from fully subsidizing employee meals in order to assure area food vendors of a steady clientele. “The point is to keep the area vibrant by having people head out into the community and spend their money,” McAlister says. “If you want economic wealth in your area, people who work there have to spend their money.”