If minimum wage earners find it too hard to live and work in the city, then by God, they should strike and make employers pay them more money!

(Also, I've been planning on trying Barzotto after seeing one of their dishes featured on Worth It.)

I'm pretty sure those servers making $15/hr expect tips. They may expect fewer or smaller tips, but they surely expect them.

When I was a server and had a party of five or more, where it's common to tack an 18% gratuity onto the check, they still often tipped another 15-20%. Unless the new checks have some very conspicuous disclaimer about the new hourly wage negating the need to tip, I'm pretty sure servers will expect it and people will pay it.

That said, I've been to SFO about 20 times and maybe four of those trips were on my own dime. The rest were on the company's dime, so I didn't care what stuff cost. I surely won't spend a dime of my own money there ever again.

Now I am even more confused after going to their website.
Why is this even a discussion this type of dining has existed for as long as I can remember. As a matter of fact they appear to be almost identical to a place we have called the Simple Greek.
http://thesimplegreek.com

Is this type of dining not commonplace in SF? I have never been there.

quote:

Originally posted by Orguss:
If minimum wage earners find it too hard to live and work in the city, then by God, they should strike and make employers pay them more money!

If minimum wage workers can't afford housing in SF, it is because there isn't enough housing available, probably exacerbated by land use and zoning restrictions. If there were greater supply, then the prices would fall. Alternatively, if you gave them more money, they would bid up the prices on housing further, thus pricing themselves out of the market or displacing others. Raising wages of waiters doesn't change the situation it just changes who wins.

According to American Fact Finder, as of 2012-16 there were 386,755 housing units in San Francisco County. If 500,000 families want to live there then 113,245 will be disappointed. In a capitalist society, price is how that winnowing process takes place. In socialism/communism it is all about your party connections or whether you give blow jobs to the local party officials.

Greater Supply = Lower Prices
Restricted Supply = Higher Prices
(ceteris paribus of course)

Best option is simply to avoid these places altogether.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Now I am even more confused after going to their website.
Why is this even a discussion this type of dining has existed for as long as I can remember. As a matter of fact they appear to be almost identical to a place we have called the Simple Greek.
http://thesimplegreek.com

Is this type of dining not commonplace in SF? I have never been there.

1. The article is not claiming that self serve is a new concept. They use the restaurant Souvla as an example of such a place. Along with places like Chipotle where you order your burrito and find a seat. This place you order your gyro and get a seat - like some BBQ places - order your sandwich and serve yourself. These are common examples of restaurants that are self serve.

2. Restaurants in SF are under pressure because they have to pay $15 per hour plus health benefits and vacation/sick time for servers and they cannot charge enough for the food to make that happen and stay in business.

3. Therefore, more traditional restaurants that serve higher end food and have been places where you sit and get served (things like steak, pan seared salmon, etc) are experimenting with the self serve concept in an attempt to stay in business.

4. This would be like downtown restaurants like Bella Notte, Giuseppe's, Malone's or Tony's turning to this concept to stay in business.

wondering if they will try the same concept that is used in Pubs in England,

order and pay at the bar , food delivered to your seat is cheaper than having a seat and having the staff come to you to order,


been 10 yrs since I was there last, so I cannot remember how much the difference was, but there was very little staff outside of what was behind the bar ,

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

The more likely cost is not the minimum wage but the supply/demand curve.

The demand for San Francisco is high due to the appeal of living in San Francisco and, also, due to the influx of highly paid tech workers located in San Francisco itself and spilling over from Silicon Valley.

Yep.
Minimum wage workers aren't bidding up the price of San Francisco real estate....

The culprit in the housing market is San Francisco's rent control laws.
https://sf.curbed.com/2017/11/...study-gentrification

As history has shown time and time again, everywhere it's ever been tried, rent control leads to extreme housing shortages and an increase in costs.

Actually, rent control laws tend to drive prices down. How much would you be willing to pay for a building under rent control versus a building not under rent control where you can raise the rents a lot more? That's not to say there's a thriving market on how to skirt the rent control laws but that just further means rent control laws aren't helping to pump up prices.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
Actually, rent control laws tend to drive prices down. How much would you be willing to pay for a building under rent control versus a building not under rent control where you can raise the rents a lot more? That's not to say there's a thriving market on how to skirt the rent control laws but that just further means rent control laws aren't helping to pump up prices.

Rent control reduces incentives to build new units, thus reducing the total housing stock.

Even forcing dramatically lower prices only makes the problem worse. Sure, more people can theoretically afford housing, but fewer people can actually find housing because of reduced supply. At some point, finding that rent controlled apartment is like winning the lottery.

If you want more people to be able to afford housing that actually is available, there is really only one solution: encourage the building of more housing units.

I wonder if the tip is figured into the price of the meal??

quote:

Originally posted by Aquabird:
I wonder if the tip is figured into the price of the meal??

It is now! Careful for what you wish, eh??

quote:

So burgers get more expensive as houses do

Excessive housing costs?? So let's add to that to help the problem.

quote:

California has become the first state to require that new homes be built with solar panels. The rules go into place in 2020 and are part of the state’s ambitious efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But these requirements also make it more expensive to build in a state where housing is already extremely expensive.

Meanwhile, tech, as they said will only pay so much. Looks like they are fed up.

quote:

Silicon Valley is on the brink of an exodus.

Members of the tech elite from Peter Thiel to Tim Ferriss are leaving San Francisco and the peninsula to the south — still the global hub of tech finance and innovation — to escape the self-described groupthink and arrogance of the Valley.

A recent article in The New York Times declared, "Silicon Valley is over." The author followed a dozen venture capitalists on a three-day bus trip through the Midwest, in pursuit of hot startups in underrated areas of the country. They marveled at the cheap home prices in cities like Detroit, Michigan, and Madison, Wisconsin, compared with the extreme cost of living in the Bay Area.

This is just another pointer that we've raised a generation with no desire to work, but want everything. Any wonder why they are all such big fans of socialism?