by fluxsauce on 7/26/18, 6:25 PM with 514 comments
by ironjunkie on 7/26/18, 6:54 PM
As much as I dislike some of the big tech cos and the TechBros working there bragging about the free food all the time, I still believe a company should be able to decide if they want to offer food or not.
Restaurants were unable to turn a profit, so they lobbied successfully and now everyone beside them got a worse outcome.
This is economy 101. A highly visible group of people lobbied hard (in this case the restaurants), and they put a small burden on everyone else to have their issue resolved. However when you calculate the outcome, the burden on everyone else is bigger than the gain that the highly visible group got out of it. Everyone is worse off.
by JumpCrisscross on 7/26/18, 10:03 PM
Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents.
(Does anyone know the story behind this bill? Which politicians and restaurants supported it? I’d like to avoid the latter going forward.)
by otterpro on 7/26/18, 7:25 PM
When I worked at a company that offered free lunch, the company used it to help build rapport and camaraderie among the coworkers. It's one time during the day when the entire team can sit down and eat lunch together and get to know about each other, which is not possible through Slack nor via meetings. Just hanging out with everyone on the team, talking about the latest Marvel movie or Star wars, etc. It was also about convenience as well as reducing stress and decisions on an already-busy day.
If the team still wants to do lunch together everyday at an outside restaurant, it would not be easy, especially the logistics, which would be a nightmare -- getting everyone to agree on one place where everyone likes their food, finding a place that can seat the entire group at a single table, finding transportation / assigning driver/riders if it's beyond walking distance, and having to divide the check afterward (or Venmo), etc. Just for a meal that lasts no more than an hour, top.
by nostrademons on 7/26/18, 10:55 PM
The problem MV's fixing is the perception that highly-paid tech workers have become a class of their own, isolated from the larger communities in which they live and insulated from negative social consequences in the communities around them. When you get paid a high salary, eat at work, only socialize with coworkers, have all your logistic needs taken care of by your rich employer, and only go home to sleep, it's really easy to feel like your city's problems are other peoples' problems. In other threads on HN, you will see plenty of mudslinging about tech workers who step over homeless people on their way to work or kick neighborhood teams off a public basketball court so they can play a company game.
The Village at San Antonio is supposed to be exactly the type of mixed-use, mixed-income development that urban planners salivate over today. It's got a mix of luxury apartments and affordable housing over street-level retail, connected by pedestrian thoroughfares to the office space that Facebook is about to rent. There are over a dozen restaurants within walking distance, ranging from Chili's, Veggie Grill, and Sajj to The Counter burgers to upscale sit-down places, along with a Walmart, a Safeway, and a Whole Foods. The whole point is to fix all the problems with tech insularity and wealth polarization that everyone complains about here.
OTOH, the cynic in me says that it won't actually do a damn thing about this, and that tech workers will stand around talking to each other and ignoring the locals in line for Veggie Grill while the service workers around them eat at the Walmart cafeteria. And the only effect will be to reduce efficiency for people who could otherwise just grab free food, take it back to their desk, and get back to work. A lot of the point of the free cafes at Google was to cut out the friction of deciding where to eat, walking there, and paying, and instead just focus on the job we had to do.
There's no free lunch. Sometimes it turns out our desires are contradictory, and the flip side of intangibles like community engagement are reduced efficiency and heavy-handed regulation.
by Roritharr on 7/26/18, 9:40 PM
We're in Germany where this is taxed heavily. If you offer your employees free meals, this becomes part of their taxable income, so you actually have to give them a raise to even this out, and then you have employees that want to opt-out to get the hands on that cash...
I always wondered how Google Germany deals with this. There is a minimum below which it doesn't get taxed and specific items like coffee, water etc fall out of this, but it blew my mind the first time I was trying to set something like this up for our company.
by optimusclimb on 7/26/18, 6:36 PM
I really hope Amazon's new HQ helps pave the way to start de-centralizing the tech industry from that one, overcrowded, and increasingly almost hostile spot.
by justinzollars on 7/26/18, 10:23 PM
As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion.
This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do?
I'm enraged.
by tzs on 7/26/18, 8:33 PM
I had expected it would be over taxes.
From the photos and description in the article and elsewhere, it looks like you can get full meals for free, meals that would cost at least $10 if bought at retail.
An employee who took two meals a day at the free company cafeteria every working day would be getting a benefit worth almost $5000/year. That's equivalent to something like an extra $8000/year salary.
I believe that food provided to employees is normally not taxable for the employee, and is actually deductible as a business expense by the employer (but I've not looked into how the recent major tax changes may have affected that), but I think that was intended for things like where employees have to remain available for emergencies during meal periods, or where meal breaks are too short to allow employees time to go get food, and things like that.
The term of art is that the meals have to be provided for the employer's convenience. In the short meal break case, for example, providing meals is for the employer's convenience because it saves them from having to offer longer meal breaks.
Meals offered for things like goodwill, morale, or attracting employees are not considered to be for the employer's convenience, but are still OK if they are de minimis. So things like donuts, soft drinks, meals when employees have to take occasional overtime, the occasional company party or picnic, and things like that are fine.
Putting in a cafeteria that offers free full meals to all employees all the time probably is not de minimis. It may not actually violate tax laws, but if it does not it is pushing the limits hard so I'd certainly not be surprised to see attempts to crack down from that angle.
by gnicholas on 7/26/18, 11:07 PM
> “We felt the employees who work there should be able to patronize the businesses—the smaller businesses—in this shopping center”
Employees already have the ability to patronize these businesses. This law is about compelling patronage.
1: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/New-Facebook-Offices-M...
by post_break on 7/26/18, 9:45 PM
by kyleblarson on 7/26/18, 6:51 PM
by carbocation on 7/26/18, 9:52 PM
by DannyBee on 7/26/18, 7:03 PM
""CAFETERIA CONDITION: In order to foster synergy between office, restaurant, and retail uses in the Center and realize the economic vitality of the project, the project anticipates employees in the office space will utilize food and retail services available in the Center. The applicant will encourage tenants and employees of tenants to utilize food and retail services available in the Center. Neither the applicant nor tenant(s) will subsidize meals by more than fifty percent (50%) or provide free meals for employees in the office space on a regular daily basis. An employer can subsidize or pay for employee meals as long as they are patronizing restaurants in the Center.
In addition: The applicant may make a request to amend this condition. The City Manager or a designee may make a recommendation to the City Council on this matter."
by acchow on 7/26/18, 11:09 PM
These cafeterias are located in the city (just like a restaurant would be), creating jobs in the city (just like a restaurant would), paying good wages and benefits to these people (unlike most restaurants would).
by Johnny555 on 7/27/18, 12:44 AM
by dev_dull on 7/26/18, 9:35 PM
by im3w1l on 7/26/18, 7:09 PM
One thing they should do in my opinion is make the place more pedestrian friendly. Maybe they could replace the big parking lots that create sprawl with denser garages?
by United857 on 7/26/18, 10:28 PM
That said, I would still have no problem if it was the landlord (WeWork) making this restriction, instead of the MTV government. This is a private business-to-business matter, and shouldn't be the domain of government.
by grahamburger on 7/26/18, 6:35 PM
by sonnyblarney on 7/26/18, 6:50 PM
FB workers are rich, and they'll not want to eat every day in the caf, and they'll be out and about as much as they would otherwise.
The alternative won't be 'restos' it will be 'the microwave'.
by rpearl on 7/27/18, 1:04 AM
by derekdahmer on 7/27/18, 3:44 AM
The people I know in SF tech take BART, grocery shop, buy coffee, go to bars, go out for dinner, buy clothes, buy and sell on craigslist, hang out in parks, play soccer, bike, go dancing, date, have kids, etc, all in their city just like everyone else.
We are not that different from any other professional industry and shouldn't let people imply that we somehow contribute less to this city.
by kazinator on 7/26/18, 6:55 PM
... while they hand out hundreds of thousands of free needles that end up on the street, among shit.
by htmlfan on 7/27/18, 12:27 AM
by pascalxus on 7/26/18, 10:28 PM
by kup0 on 7/26/18, 7:39 PM
I get that this is localized in an area that has companies that probably offer better benefits than most others, but the idea of restricting benefits at all seems ludicrous to me
by chatmasta on 7/26/18, 6:39 PM
by ajmurmann on 7/27/18, 5:37 AM
by augbog on 7/27/18, 1:01 AM
Right now, with tech it's heavily favored toward catered food which local restaurants don't necessarily specialize in. At my start up we have a generic catering company that will have a rotating meal each day. It's cost-effective and still good quality food and removes the hassle of our Workplace Services from figuring out what food we should get next time.
If local restaurants could adapt to such a model and made more of an effort to advertise toward their market and perhaps arrange a monthly catered meal or something of the sort, they might see themselves doing better.
by ropans808 on 7/26/18, 6:45 PM
by ksec on 7/26/18, 6:55 PM
The companies would have owned the property, and making the meal cost at least 30% cheaper.
by nissimk on 7/26/18, 10:33 PM
by neap24 on 7/27/18, 5:56 AM
by dmode on 7/26/18, 10:48 PM
by catpawsandwich on 7/27/18, 7:08 AM
It is not the problem of the business that decides to plant itself in a location and provide food first off. All the vendors of that location are privy to supply... unless this large corp has signed a contract with a specific vendor.
However, if they did, the individual food vendor would never know because it would be like the corp planned to not make a footprint. So they just provided food. nbd. So they did not hurt the local market and keeping it inward.
So now outside food vendors are irritated because a precaution was put in place to not affect them, but "an unknown - of growing" got too big and now they feel they can't survive next to their neighbor. --Valid point. So how do we as big corps help the neighbor... and this is not just about food.
by beamatronic on 7/26/18, 7:00 PM
by harlanji on 7/26/18, 11:38 PM
No opinions of my own offered here. I've enjoyed offices with and without meal options in SoMa and around the Bay.
by panzagl on 7/26/18, 6:44 PM
by taf2 on 7/26/18, 11:57 PM
by catpawsandwich on 7/27/18, 7:34 AM
by urda on 7/26/18, 11:22 PM
But at the same time, I'm not shocked. This is a classic California move and government overstep.
by vzaliva on 7/27/18, 8:23 AM
P.S. I work at MTV area and finding parking at lunch is already a challenge. With the influx of Facebook lunchgoers, it will become impossible to park in downtown.
by buss on 7/27/18, 6:13 AM
1. The "Progressive" majority on the Board of Supervisors passes it and Mayor Breed vetoes it, giving Progressives yet another "you're a shill for big tech!" line of attack
2. It doesn't make it out of committee and everybody quickly forgets what an ass Aaron Peskin is
Just ignore it and donate to reform-minded leaders like Theo Ellington, Sonja Trauss, and Christine Johnson.
by throwaway426079 on 7/26/18, 6:48 PM
by contingencies on 7/27/18, 7:25 AM
Assume you have employees on an average salary of USD$140K (example round figure) doing 7 hours work with 1 hour for lunch.
Ignoring the staggering environmental impact, if you lose an extra 30 minutes (1/14th of the 7 hour work day) because of transport and parking bullshit due to this new rule, then you are effectively losing USD$10K per annum per employee.
by stretchwithme on 7/27/18, 4:26 AM
You can't really do that in the coastal areas but maybe inland or in states like Arizona or New Mexico. Put it all under a solar dome so you can control the heat. Okay, maybe that's too much :-)
by danmg on 7/26/18, 10:30 PM
by sabujp on 7/26/18, 11:40 PM
by satsuma on 7/26/18, 6:45 PM
by gnopgnip on 7/26/18, 11:04 PM
by torgian on 7/26/18, 11:48 PM
by justizin on 7/26/18, 11:14 PM
(a) Twitter, Google, Facebook, and Genentech are grandfathered into their cafeterias, and it's fairly unlikely any other companies will build cafeterias.
(b) This is partially because most companies are too small for a dedicated cafeteria, so they use a catering service like ZeroCater, which source most meals from local restaurants that don't do much or any lunch service.
(c) There are other companies like Gap, which have a cafeteria largely because there is nothing near their office but parking lots, and they are next to UCSF which certainly has at least one cafeteria at that location.
One of the major ways this misses the boat is that there are lower paid employees in tech companies, often contractors, who have access to free food in ways that substantially makes life more affordable for them. So yes, engineers pulling six figures are maybe given a little toooo much perks, but when that is spread around, I'm strongly in favor of it. There are people in these tech offices making not much more than minimum wage, and I'm not just talking about janitorial and maintenance staff - I'm talking about CS, QA, UX contractors and all manner of other office work.
Safai is not really a progressive, so he's probably come up with this idea to overcompensate for that and appeal to progressives. This doesn't really sound like Aaron Peskin, either, who mostly works to coalition build and is primarily focused on housing policy.
I would suspect that Peskin is supporting this to get Safai to work with him on some other bill, and that he expects it to fail.
by elheffe80 on 7/26/18, 10:51 PM
by imh on 7/27/18, 1:23 AM
by FrozenVoid on 7/27/18, 3:00 PM
by benkarst on 7/27/18, 12:49 AM
by mesozoic on 7/27/18, 1:27 AM
by flak48 on 7/27/18, 10:18 AM
by mesozoic on 7/27/18, 1:26 AM
by jiveturkey on 7/27/18, 5:15 AM
by hithereagain on 7/27/18, 2:34 AM
by StClaire on 7/27/18, 5:11 AM
by really3452 on 7/27/18, 3:22 AM
by WalterBright on 7/27/18, 9:26 AM
They aren't doing anything wrong.
by mycodebreaks on 7/27/18, 12:59 AM
by pjspycha on 7/26/18, 7:08 PM
by kirubakaran on 7/27/18, 6:10 AM
by seanhandley on 7/27/18, 8:53 AM
by exabrial on 7/26/18, 6:43 PM
Wow. Incredibly corrupt. I'm guessing next lunch boxes are going to be banned?
by mnm1 on 7/26/18, 6:38 PM
by beenBoutIT on 7/26/18, 7:12 PM
by Sushi-san on 7/26/18, 9:52 PM