Quote: Housing in San Francisco is so costly, restaurant workers are leaving the city for more affordable regions, according to a report in The New York Times.
Some of the city's restaurants can't find — or can't afford — front-of-house workers. They're finding solutions for operating without helping hands.
Some restaurant that look like full-service spots have diners seat themselves, fetch their own water, bus their table, and more.

There's something different about San Francisco's restaurant scene these days.

Its workers are vanishing.

A new report in The New York Times posits that in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in America, rising rents and labor costs have forced some restaurants to go without servers. In their absence, diners at popular restaurants such as Souvla and RT Rotisserie seat themselves, fetch their own water, bus their table, and more.

Restauranteurs call it the "fast-fine" or "fine-casual" model of dining.

Part of the problem is that restaurant owners can no longer afford staffing their front-of-house. Commercial rent prices have soared alongside housing costs.

But the Bay Area also faces a dire shortage of restaurant workers, as those who can't afford to live near their place of work move away to more affordable regions.

Restaurant workers in San Francisco earned a median income of just over $30,000 in 2017. That makes them some of the highest-paid restaurant workers in America, according to a study by real-estate site Trulia. But their income still isn't enough to buy a home.

Approximately 0.1% of homes on the market are affordable for the city's restaurant workers, Trulia found. The median list price in San Francisco was $1.477 million at the time the study was conducted. By comparison, restaurant workers in Detroit can afford 50% of homes on the market, while only 2% of homes are affordable in New York.

"We can sit around here, and we can complain and whine and moan," said Charles Bililies, owner of Greek restaurant Souvla. "We can be very negative about this."

"Or we can sort of turn this on its head and see an opportunity," he told the Times.

At Souvla, the counter-service restaurant has the look of a full-service spot. Diners sit at copper tables and wood counters under the windows, which flood the airy, high-ceilinged dining room with natural light. Copper pans and fresh herb sprigs hang on the walls.

A simple menu offers just two entrées — a sandwich and a salad — made with diner's choice of meat or vegetables. Prices range between $12 and $15 a plate.

(06-27-2018 04:40 PM)Kronke Wrote:  Oh!

Feel free to bump all my “Bay area is about to go bust” threads when tom runs in to virtue signal about how they are a utopia and what flyover states should aspire to.

Quote:In the high-priced Bay Area, even some households that bring in six figures a year can now be considered “low income.”

That’s according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which recently released its 2017 income limits — a threshold that determines who can qualify for affordable and subsidized housing programs such as Section 8 vouchers.

San Francisco and San Mateo counties have the highest limits in the Bay Area — and among the highest such numbers in the country. A family of four with an income of $105,350 per year is considered “low income.” A $65,800 annual income is considered “very low” for a family the same size, and $39,500 is “extremely low.” The median income for those areas is $115,300.

Other Bay Area counties are not far behind. In Alameda and Contra Costa counties, $80,400 for a family of four is considered low income, while in Santa Clara County, $84,750 is the low-income threshold for a family of four.

(06-27-2018 05:12 PM)usmbacker Wrote:  In costly Bay Area, even six-figure salaries are considered ‘low income’

This tid bit of news should add to this thread.

Quote:In the high-priced Bay Area, even some households that bring in six figures a year can now be considered “low income.”

That’s according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which recently released its 2017 income limits — a threshold that determines who can qualify for affordable and subsidized housing programs such as Section 8 vouchers.

San Francisco and San Mateo counties have the highest limits in the Bay Area — and among the highest such numbers in the country. A family of four with an income of $105,350 per year is considered “low income.” A $65,800 annual income is considered “very low” for a family the same size, and $39,500 is “extremely low.” The median income for those areas is $115,300.

Other Bay Area counties are not far behind. In Alameda and Contra Costa counties, $80,400 for a family of four is considered low income, while in Santa Clara County, $84,750 is the low-income threshold for a family of four.

Keep reading here....

(06-27-2018 04:30 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  It's going to start happening a lot of places. Seattle is having a housing crisis. Boise is having a housing crisis. Tacoma, Jacksonville, Raleigh-Durham, and other cities deemed mid-sized are all facing a big rise in housing prices.

San Francisco is one of the more extreme cases of this. It has become too desirable. But as some companies start to move opereations out of that area, there are going to be problems in that new location.

This is where easier and cheaper travel from cities to surrounding areas could help a lot. You could live in a cheaper area and still work in a bigger city without the investment that commuting in a car would entail.

(06-27-2018 05:32 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-27-2018 04:30 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  It's going to start happening a lot of places. Seattle is having a housing crisis. Boise is having a housing crisis. Tacoma, Jacksonville, Raleigh-Durham, and other cities deemed mid-sized are all facing a big rise in housing prices.

San Francisco is one of the more extreme cases of this. It has become too desirable. But as some companies start to move opereations out of that area, there are going to be problems in that new location.

This is where easier and cheaper travel from cities to surrounding areas could help a lot. You could live in a cheaper area and still work in a bigger city without the investment that commuting in a car would entail.

Its where more cities should copy Houston. Build your way out of price escalation.
http://www.sightline.org/2017/09/21/yes-you-can-build-your-way-to-affordable-housing/

"...There—even before Hurricane Harvey wrecked havoc on the housing stock in August—housing cost less , adjusted for inflation, than it did in 1980, as this Economist graphic illustrates. The median price of a single-family house in Harris County, Texas, which surrounds Houston was $141,000. In King County, Washington, which surrounds Cascadia’s first city of Seattle, the median-priced home now costs $658,000, more than four-and-a-half times as much.

And Houston is no rust-belt basket case of decay and outmigration. It is the fourth largest city in the United States, among the fastest growing, and likely to rebound with surprising rapidity from the armageddon storm that just struck it. It’s also the most diverse large metropolitan area in the country, a demographic forerunner of the United States overall, with no ethnic or racial group in the majority. (Unlearn some of your stereotypes about Houston in Ed Glaeser’s Triumph of the City, this recent article by Nolan Gray, or this eye-opening lecture by Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg.) Houston has built its way to affordable housing...."

(06-27-2018 09:21 PM)thespiritof1976 Wrote:  Other than the weather and some of the scenery I can't imagine why anyone would want to live in the 21st century equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah.

San Francisco is a dump. Crime, bums, perverts, every disgusting filthy dirty deviant "lifestyle" is promoted, dirty needles, filth in the street, disease from illegals, the scent of fecal matter and urine are overwhelming in many neighborhoods, Golden Gate Park is one big bum and vagrant camp site, etc....

And I thought Orlando was bad. It is a paradise compared to San Francisco.

(06-28-2018 11:35 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  I am regularly in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area on business, and in fact lived in the East Bay for a while.

There is a very real attraction to the area as it is quite vibrant, but the squallor is remarkable as well - I am no shrinking violet but damn that open air drug use, mentally unstable homeless, and pure unadulterated filth was pretty jarring.

But you know, we would escape on the weekends to places like Half Moon Bay over on the ocean or up to the American River outside Sacramento to go whitewater rafting and bang - that's why people love California.

(Not to say of course that you can't get those experiences in other places, just saying that there is something attractive about CA.)

(06-28-2018 11:52 AM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(06-28-2018 11:35 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  I am regularly in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area on business, and in fact lived in the East Bay for a while.

There is a very real attraction to the area as it is quite vibrant, but the squallor is remarkable as well - I am no shrinking violet but damn that open air drug use, mentally unstable homeless, and pure unadulterated filth was pretty jarring.

But you know, we would escape on the weekends to places like Half Moon Bay over on the ocean or up to the American River outside Sacramento to go whitewater rafting and bang - that's why people love California.

(Not to say of course that you can't get those experiences in other places, just saying that there is something attractive about CA.)

That’s the issue.

My first trip to Cali was Santa Barbara, San Onofre, Blacks and a few others.

We had our car(s) broken into on 3 completely separate instances.

This was over a 2+ week stay with friends that grew up there, so “local” tags and all.

Damn near that entire state should be a paradise, from Tahoe to San Diego. (We can surgically remove Sacramento if needed)

But it’s not. It’s become a near mirror image of a schithole.
Try to go camping in a public campground. Trash everywhere. People just tossing/leaving their schit all over the place.

No regard for “leave it better than you found it”. Too many of the places now look like open air landfills.

Forget the new Apps coming out that alert you to where piles of human feces are, so you can hopefully avoid all that...

People are openly fleeing that state.

(06-28-2018 11:52 AM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(06-28-2018 11:35 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote:  I am regularly in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area on business, and in fact lived in the East Bay for a while.

There is a very real attraction to the area as it is quite vibrant, but the squallor is remarkable as well - I am no shrinking violet but damn that open air drug use, mentally unstable homeless, and pure unadulterated filth was pretty jarring.

But you know, we would escape on the weekends to places like Half Moon Bay over on the ocean or up to the American River outside Sacramento to go whitewater rafting and bang - that's why people love California.

(Not to say of course that you can't get those experiences in other places, just saying that there is something attractive about CA.)

That’s the issue.

My first trip to Cali was Santa Barbara, San Onofre, Blacks and a few others.

We had our car(s) broken into on 3 completely separate instances.

This was over a 2+ week stay with friends that grew up there, so “local” tags and all.

Damn near that entire state should be a paradise, from Tahoe to San Diego. (We can surgically remove Sacramento if needed)

But it’s not. It’s become a near mirror image of a schithole.
Try to go camping in a public campground. Trash everywhere. People just tossing/leaving their schit all over the place.

No regard for “leave it better than you found it”. Too many of the places now look like open air landfills.

Forget the new Apps coming out that alert you to where piles of human feces are, so you can hopefully avoid all that...

People are openly fleeing that state.