• A suspected explosive device was recovered from a lake at Sonoma State University by the sheriff’s department bomb squad Thursday evening after the device was spotted by a person who was fishing for metal objects with a magnet. [KRON4]
• Despite having one of the largest economies in the world, the California job market is currently among the worst in the country. [Bay Area News Group]
• A person was fatally shot in San Bruno Friday afternoon, which authorities believe was a homicide, and a large structure fire erupted soon after with smoke that could be seen for miles. [NBC Bay Area]

• During Green Day’s set at Friday night’s Spotify-sponsored FanDuel Party in San Francisco — prior to their big performance opening the Super Bowl in Santa Clara Sunday, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong advised ICE agents to “Quit that (expletive) job you have.” [Bay Area News Group]
• Friends and family of Jayda Mabrey, the 15-year-old girl who was fatally shot in SF’s Western Addition last week, urged the Board of Supervisors to focus on gun control policies and creating community spaces for youth, with one community member pointing out the exorbitant amount of money and resources going toward the Super Bowl festivities while Mabrey’s family plans her funeral. [The Untethered Telegram]
• Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu are suing two websites, owned by the Gatalog Foundation Inc. and CTRLPEW LLC, for distributing over 150 designs of 3D-printed ghost guns and accessories, which can be created  “with a few simple keystrokes.” [CalMatters]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Take that, red states! California has surpassed Japan to become the fourth-largest economy in the world, with an estimated Gross Domestic Product of more than $4 trillion.

If for whatever reason you happen to follow California Governor Gavin Newsom on Twitter, you’ll notice that his Twitter feed today is just him reposting different news articles written about the exact same topic, over and over and over. But sure, let the Gav celebrate. Because all of those articles he’s reposting are about Wednesday's news that California has surpassed the nation of Japan in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and that California is now the fourth-largest economy in the world.

California had previously passed the United Kingdom to become the fifth-largest economy in the world back in 2018.

“California isn’t just keeping pace with the world — we’re setting the pace,” Newsom bragged in the state’s official press release. “Our economy is thriving because we invest in people, prioritize sustainability, and believe in the power of innovation. And, while we celebrate this success, we recognize that our progress is threatened by the reckless tariff policies of the current federal administration. California’s economy powers the nation, and it must be protected.”

The latest federal numbers show that California’s GDP reached $4.1 trillion, overtaking the previous No. 4 Japan at $4.02 trillion. In terms of US states, Texas would come in a distant second place with a $2.7 trillion GDP.

It’s kind of a fake metric, though. The statistic uses the International Monetary Fund’s rankings of GDP by nation, and the International Monetary Fund does not count California separately from the United States. But this is crossed-tabbed against the just-released US state GDP data, which shows California with the new $4.1 trillion GDP. So there could be some methodology differences, or comparisons of apples to oranges.  

But our state’s economic growth is undeniable, and represents a big shit sandwich for all the wealthy conservative loudmouths who claim that Texas is a better place to do business than California.

"In 2024, California’s growth rate of 6% outpaced the top three economies: U.S. (5.3%), China (2.6%) and Germany (2.9%),” Newsom’s office adds in the release. “California’s success is long-term — the state’s economy grew strongly over the last four years, with an average nominal GDP growth of 7.5% from 2021 to 2024.”

Though the release also gets in a dig at Trump's tariffs. “President Trump’s tariffs are projected to shrink the U.S. economy by $100 billion annually,” Newsom’s release adds, explaining that’s why the state is suing to halt Trump’s tariffs.

Related: Now Gavin Newsom Claims California Has Eliminated Its Budget Deficit, Is Back in Surplus Times [SFist]

Image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 26: Gavin Newsom speaks onstage during the Vogue World: Hollywood Press Announcement at Chateau Marmont on March 26, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/WireImage)

Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday asked other countries to exempt California exports from retaliatory tariffs, in an effort to save the state's agricultural industry in particular amid Trump's asinine trade war.

"Donald Trump's tariff's do not represent all Americans," Newsom said in a video posted to X Friday morning. "And on behalf of the 40 million Americans that live in the great state of California, the tentpole of the US economy, 14% of the US GDP, the fifth largest economy in the world, the dominant manufacturing state, our state of mind is on supporting stable trading relationships around the globe."

Trump's newly announced, extraordinary tariffs on all foreign imports were met with a retaliatory tariff from China on US exports of 34% on Friday. And as Fox News reported Thursday, Newsom is particularly concerned about California's almond growers, and the impact that such tariffs will have on the almond trade.

California produces 80% of the world's almonds, and almonds account for 20% of the state's agricultural exports.

It doesn't seem legally possible for a state to negotiate trading terms separately from the rest of the country, but Newsom said he was directing his administration to find opportunities for expanding trade and "remind trading partners around the world that California remains a stable partner."

"California’s long-standing commitment to global cooperation, innovation, and openness has helped power its rise to the world’s fifth-largest economy — leading in good-paying jobs to support California’s working families," a press release from the governor's office reads. "With the Governor’s announcement today, the state will extend that leadership through strategic, mutually beneficial partnerships rooted in respect, trust, and shared growth."

By any means they can, Newsom says he's directing his administration to "promote economic stability for businesses and workers impacted by federal trade disruptions," and "safeguard access to critical supplies, such as construction materials needed for recovery efforts following the devastating Los Angeles firestorms."

We'll have to wait to see if this amounts to anything more than political theater, or if countries are able to respond in any way to Newsom's plea.

Newsom is widely thought to be preparing a run for president in 2028.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai issued a statement in response saying, "Gavin Newsom should focus on out-of-control homelessness, crime, regulations, and unaffordability in California instead of trying his hand at international dealmaking."

Photo via Getty Images

Posts on social media have been calling for a mass boycott of major retailers on Friday. The event appears to be attributed to People's Union USA, whose mission is a bit vague.

A call to action to boycott major retailers and only shop locally for essentials this Friday has been gaining momentum over the past few weeks. According to Yahoo News, it's unclear who the official organizer of the event is, but Yahoo claims the mission behind the blackout is to put pressure on corporations who are abandoning DEI initiatives.

Some posts circling social media are attributing the boycott to People's Union USA, a nonpartisan group founded by John Schwarz, who goes by "J "or  "TheOneCalledJai," a businessman and drummer in the Midwest who was born in Queens. The group doesn't seem to have a very clear mission, except that citizens' collective resistance can be a powerful tool.

The People's Union is planning two other blackouts focused specifically on Amazon from March 7–14 and Nestle March 21–28.

From the People's Union USA website regarding Friday:

WHAT NOT TO DO:

Do not make any purchases

Do not shop online, or in-store

No Amazon, No Walmart, No Best Buy

Nowhere!

Do not spend money on:

Fast Food

Gas

Major Retailers

Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non essential spending

Image: Pierre (Rennes)/Flickr

A combination of inflation, high interest rates, and tech layoffs have some economists worried that a nasty California recession is brewing, though the downturn may be limited to commercial real estate landlords and people who made bank during the pandemic.

You’re currently seeing a nonstop loop of San Francisco “doom loop” articles in the Chronicle, which seems odd, because San Francisco's unemployment rate is currently at a terrifically low 2.9%. I’m pretty sure things were way worse when the pandemic had the city’s unemployment rate higher than 12%! Meanwhile the New York Times, which loves to bash the SF Bay Area when they have a chance, just published its own kind of California “doom loop” analysis over of the national factors of inflation, high interest rates, and the stock market downturn, combined with California variables like tech layoffs and economic fallout from this winter’s storms.

Mind you, California is still by many accounts the fourth largest economy in the world, statewide unemployment is just 4.3%, and I can think of 49 other U.S. states that would love to be the economic powerhouse that is California. But it’s hardly reassuring that the state is looking at a deficit again, of $22.5 billion. That’s not historically so bad (Governor Gray Davis ran a $38 billion deficit in 2003, a time when the state’s GDP is far smaller, and we all survived). But it’s still a shock when you said you had a $108 billion surplus a year or so prior, highlighting the risks of California's boom-and-bust economic cycles — Newsom referred to the charts of deficit and surplus as looking like "an EKG."

“The tech sector is the workhorse of the state’s economy, it’s the backbone,” Loyola Marymount University economics professor Sung Won Sohn told the Times. “These are high earners who might not be able to carry the state as much as they did in the past.”

You’re aware there have been massive tech layoffs, though that still seems contained to companies that made bank during the pandemic and grew way too much. Though the Times also points out a 36% global decline in venture capital investment, which hits California disproportionately hard, and the Times adds that information sector employment has “declined by more than 16,000 from November to February.”

There are other troubling factors outside the tech industry. Disney had 7,000 layoffs in February, which is one example of how Hollywood is being affected. The Times also adds that “California’s robust supply chain, which drives nearly a third of the state’s economy, has continued to buckle under stresses from the pandemic and an ongoing labor fight between longshoremen and port operators up and down the West Coast." They add that “Cargo processing at the Port of Los Angeles, a key entry point for shipments from Asia, was down 43 percent in February, compared with the year before.”

Thus far, the layoffs are not spreading beyond the tech industry, and the financial pain seems to be most severe for the commercial real estate industry. Those sectors have lived lavishly for about the last decade, so a correction is not out of the ordinary, and plenty of us have had it tougher than them. But the Times does add that UCLA economic forecasters have considered several scenarios wherein the financial pain spreads beyond tech and commercial real estate.

And frankly, it’s kind of encouraging that the Times concludes “Regardless of which scenario pans out, California’s economy is likely to be better off than the national one.”

Related: Study Ranks San Francisco Dead Last In U.S. for Downtown Economic Recoveries [SFist]

Image: First Republic Bank via Yelp

It was good news on Thursday for regional bank First Republic, which on Monday was facing serious stress in the wake of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. A coalition of larger banks agreed to funnel $30 billion in deposits to the bank to help it shore itself and meet the demand for withdrawals.

Major banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and U.S. Bank all came together to give a lifeline to First Republic Bank Thursday, and the Treasury Department said the gesture "demonstrates the resilience of the banking system" as a whole.

In a collective statement, the banks said, "This action by America’s largest banks reflects their confidence in First Republic and in banks of all sizes, and it demonstrates their overall commitment to helping banks serve their customers and communities. Regional, midsize and small banks are critical to the health and functioning of our financial system."

Trading in shares of First Republic have been halted multiple times this week due to volatility. After tanking by 70% early Monday, the bank's share price recovered considerably Tuesday, but it's had a rough week on Wall Street and remains down 50% overall in five days.

As CNN reports, S&P Global Ratings downgraded First Republic's credit rating this week based on its large number of uninsured deposits. Unlike SVB, which had 94% of its total deposits uninsured by the FDIC, First Republic has a lower percentage — but one that is still high at around 68%. This has led to a modest run on the bank with customers looking to move their money elsewhere this week.

First Republic is also said to have a particularly high liability to deposit ratio of 111%, meaning that it has lent out more money than it has to pay out to depositors, putting it in a high-risk position should borrowers default.

"America’s financial system is among the best in the world, and America’s banks – large, midsize and community banks – do an extraordinary job serving the banking needs of their unique customers and communities," the coalition of banks coming to the rescue today said. "The banking system has strong credit, plenty of liquidity, strong capital and strong profitability. Recent events did nothing to change this."

Previously: SF-Based First Republic Bank In Huge Trouble As Shares Collapse By More Than 70%, Trading Halted

Top image: An office sits empty at the First Republic Bank headquarters on March 16, 2023 in San Francisco, California. A week after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed, First Republic Bank is considering a sale following a dramatic 60 percent drop in its stock price over the past week. The bank also received $70 billion in emergency loans from JP Morgan Chase and the Federal Reserve. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Yet another analysis points out the well-reported state of affairs that downtown San Francisco’s economic recovery from the pandemic is awfully sluggish, but this one purports that we’re in last place among 62 North American cities.

It’s pretty common these days for some pro-business Bay Area think tank to put out a study about the death of downtown San Francisco since pandemic restrictions have largely been lifted, and a hundred thinkpieces have been penned on the topic. Every single one of these thinkpieces and analyses fails to take into account that San Francisco also had the lowest COVID-19 death rate of any U.S. city, and by a substantial margin at that. So if we’re suffering hundreds or thousands fewer deaths than other same-size cities, but having a slower economic recovery, call me crazy but that’s a trade-off I would take any day.

But the Chronicle reports one of these new analyses ranks San Francisco dead last among the 62 largest North American cities in terms of downtown activity since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. That comes from a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies analysis that studied the largest U.S. (and Canadian) cities’ mobile phone-ping data — measuring cellphone activity in SF's downtown quadrant in 2019 vs. 2022 — and found that there’s only 31% as much human activity in downtown SF compared to pre-pandemic.    

“In this research, we examine visits over time to 62 downtown areas using mobile phone data, comparing the most recent activity (as of November 30, 2022) to pre-pandemic levels (in 2019),” the study says. “We find wide variation in the extent of recovery, with activity ranging from a low of 31% of pre-pandemic levels in San Francisco to a high of 135% in Salt Lake City.”

In contrast to other studies which use data from public-transit exits or car traffic, this study specifically isolates the number of cellphones in an area at a given time.

You can see the data represented in their graph above (“RQ” means “Recovery Quotient”). And a small number of mid-sized cities, like the aforementioned Salt Lake City, plus Bakersfield and Fresno, actually have more bustling downtowns now than they did pre-pandemic.

There are a few reasons SF is in last place, but the big one is our very large tech sector that is still often working from home. “In general, places with a higher share of employment in knowledge-based industries and occupations and/or more highly paid workers, are likely to shift towards remote work," the study says. “Surveys suggest that shift will be permanent for up to half of the workforce in cities that are large and congested (e.g., New York), or powered by the tech sector (e.g., San Francisco).”

The study’s lead author, UC Berkeley professor Karen Chapple, tells KRON4 that "San Francisco suffers from an economy that isn’t very diverse. It does great when there is a tech boom, but right now it’s really hurting the city’s resilience."

Certainly the tech office vacancy rate is dire, as we learned this week that there are currently 15 Salesforce Towers worth of empty offices in San Francisco. Commercial real estate brokerage CBRE quotes the city’s office vacancy rate hitting a record high 27% at the end of last year.

“San Francisco set itself up for this,” Chapple explains to KRON4. “It zoned out residential and doubled down on commercial offices in the downtown zip code. That’s what it decided this area of the city should be and it was the wrong bet.”

She’s probably correct on that, and we ought to be moving faster on converting offices to housing. But there are more figures to consider. The Chamber of Commerce and business lobby set also fail to take into account that San Francisco unemployment is currently at a fabulously low rate of 2.3%, which by the way is lower than it was pre-pandemic. So maybe those people working in downtown cafes, bánh mì shops, and Financial District bars have found other work?

Or sure, maybe they moved to Fresno or Bakersfield, whose downtowns are more bustling than the Before Times. But Bakersfield currently has 6.8% unemployment (nearly triple that of SF!), while Fresno has 6.6% unemployment. So that may be some important context when the big-business think tanks tell San Francisco that it supposedly has the worst downtown economy in the nation.

Related: ​​State of SF Economy: Tech Booming, Unemployment Low, But Tourism and Hospitality Still Screwed [SFist]

Image: Clay Elliot via Unsplash

The SF unemployment rate is a fabulously low 2.9%, but the FiDi is still a ghost town, and SF’s economic recovery lags behind that of other cities, according to a new report from the Office of the Controller.  

It has been a fact of life through the pandemic that tech companies are making bank, while the overall economy has been shakier. But other sectors are starting to improve, and unemployment is at a pretty historic low. Still, two of the main drivers of the San Francisco economy are tourism and office workers spending money downtown. And both tourism and the downtown SF economy are still moribund, according to a 23-page Status of the Re-Opening of the San Francisco Economy report from the city’s Office of the Controller

“The only industry that’s doing better in San Francisco than it was before the start of the pandemic was the tech industry,” the city’s Chief Economist Ted Egan sums it up to the SF Standard.

As seen above, SF’s office vacancy rate is still well above 20% (it was 6% pre-pandemic!).  Sure, many of us could care less whether corporate landlords like CB Richard Ellis are making their money. But you’ve got to feel for small downtown shops like Lee’s Sandwiches, or your favorite downtown bars, who are getting financially hammered by this ongoing absence of foot traffic.

And while the trends mirror what’s happening across the country, it is worse here than in large metros. See above how SF lags well behind other cities like Austin, Los Angeles, and New York in people showing up to work at the office. That said, we cannot help but mock our supposed tech-hub replacement Austin, Texas for their precipitous drop last January and February because their dumbfuck governor can’t reliably run a power grid (which by the way, is happening again right now). Hope you don't have to burn any furniture to stay warm, Elon!

And that’s just one of the reasons we’re skeptical of these “sky is falling in San Francisco” narratives. Yes, we are slower to return to the office than other cities, and the big conferences still are not returning. But unemployment is exceedingly low, and our minuscule COVID-19 death rate should be (but isn’t) the envy of the nation. Low unemployment and low mortality rate are trade-offs that I would take any day.

And hey, the rents are still wayyyy lower than before the pandemic, so that certainly doesn't suck.

Related: SF Unemployment Rate Dips to Just 3%, But More Still Unemployed Than Before Pandemic [SFist]

Image: @ibidsy via Unsplash

As you've likely heard, Gap is in trouble. The San Francisco-based clothing company faces declining sales and is on the verge of closing dozens of stores as shoppers look elsewhere for their sartorial needs. One central problem, as Bloomberg reports and has been noted in recent years, likely has to do with the company's failure to realize that conformity is no longer hip.

The situation is perhaps best exemplified by Gap's failed 2014 "Dress Normal" ad campaign which, as Ad Week reported at the time, was widely considered to be a flub. " 'Dress Normal' boldly instructs individuals to shape their own authentic, personal style—and intentionally challenges every one of us to dress for ourselves," the campaign press release confusingly read.

To add to its failure to connect with consumers, industry analyst Simeon Siegel told Bloomberg that Gap's 3,700 physical locations have become more of an albatross than an asset. The company is “simply too large in the new normal where physical distribution has become a liability and uniformity is no longer ‘cool,’ ” he explained.

Retail consultant Carol Spieckerman put it this way, back in May, to the Chronicle: "We are operating in a trendless environment" and "Gap is in a lot more vulnerable position than other retailers, because they held on to this dictatorial bent [about what’s fashionable] a little bit longer than necessary. The game has shifted to react to consumers rather than dictate the fashion."

Gap yesterday reported that the brand's sales (as opposed to other Gap-owned brands like Old Navy) were down 3 percent in the third quarter, and a full 9 percent for Banana Republic. As noted by Forbes, this decline isn't new for the company. Gap faced a first-quarter drop of 6 percent this year when compared to first-quarter sales last year.

Back in May, Forbes identified Gap's stores as a hindrance to their growth in the face of e-commerce challengers. It seems now, with the announced store closures, Gap is again looking to address that issue.

What that means for the future of the company is unclear — this, of course, isn't the first time Gap has been forced to close stores. However, if the brand is to compete with challengers like H&M, shuttering stores may not be enough. Instead, Gap may need to think outside the box for a solution that, well, isn't so normal.

Related: Could Gap Be Declaring Bankruptcy Soon?
Gap Lays Off 250 Employees, Announces Closure Of 175 Stores

Can we all admit, finally, that the tech bubble has indeed burst, or at least floated off and disappeared somehow as bubbles do? It may be less of a pop-up than just a quiet *ploosh*, but things have shifted, lots of people want to move to New York, and now KCBS is reporting a very notable data point that should convince the naysayers to stop saying nay: In the first four months of 2016, there have been more than double the number of layoffs at Silicon Valley tech companies than there were by this time in 2015.

That number is 3,135, compared to just 1,515 last year, and maybe it's not the dramatic bloodletting (yet) that occurred circa 2001, but it's something to make note of! The number for the same period in 2014 saw 1,330 layoffs.

As the Mercury-News explains, this data comes from mandatory filings under California's WARN Act, and the layoffs are spread about Bay Area counties, but primarily concentrated in Santa Clara, which saw 2,500 pink slips and severance packages so far this year.

Wells Fargo senior economist Mark Vitner says this is all a natural part of a seven-year cycle of expansion, noting that job growth has slowed by there is definitely still growth. (800 new jobs so far this year, compared to about 1,600 a month in 2015.) Still, he tells the paper, "My general sense is the tide is beginning to go out," adding, "It doesn't mean a recession is right around the corner."

I will restrain myself from using that infamous gif just yet.

Related: Lots Of Tech Talent Trying To Leave SF For NY
How Many San Franciscans Are Rooting For The Tech Economy To Tank?

Valencia Street probably already hit "peak restaurant" last year, and if you believe chef and restaurateur Dennis Leary (The Sentinel, Golden West, House of Shields), so did the rest of the city. San Francisco Magazine has a long-read in their new issue in which they speak to a bevy of local players in the restaurant scene, including Leary, Marlowe/Park Tavern owner Anna Weinberg, and restaurant empire building Adriano Paganini (Beretta, Lolinda, Belga, Delarosa, Super Duper, etc.) who all say many of the same things that restaurateurs have been saying about San Francisco for years now. Basically, it's a nearly impossible place to do business, rents are going through the roof, it's impossible to hire good staff these days because no one can afford to live here, and yes your chicken entrée does have to cost $40 for all of the above reasons. Also, God help anyone who's trying to open anything this year, but also, best of luck.

Below, a few choice pull quotes.

On making sure your concept works: "Anyone who opens a restaurant needs to create a concept that is really ‘on’ in some way and isn’t marginal. Because marginal isn’t working anymore... You need to make damn sure that you’re going to be very busy at all times. Otherwise, don’t even do it."
- Adriano Paganini

On keeping prices low: "It’s about being creative. You figure out how to use ingredients that don’t cost as much but taste good. The advantage restaurants have right now is that people are willing to try anything."
- Ryan Cole, one of the owners of Hi Neighbor Hospitality, which opened the $35 prix-fixe spot Trestle to instant success last year.

On having to raise prices eventually: "There’s only so much you can cut before you raise prices. There’s no hidden thing, like, oh, we shouldn’t get garbage picked up anymore. You have to raise prices."
- Laurence Jossel, chef-owner at Nopa

Regarding the city's healthcare mandate, and that earlier scandal in which the City Attorney's Office went after restaurants that were pocketing leftover flexible spending account money at the end of the year: "So here’s the problem. I’m paying $850,000 a year to insure Tacolicious employees. I promise you that not $100,000 of that money will be used. My average employee is 26 years old and drinks enough on a nightly basis to kill any bacteria in their system... The city went on a witch hunt, basically because the government wanted money."
- Joe Hargrave, owner of Tacolicious

On the complications surrounding minimum wage mandates, and wage discrepancies: "It’s not that paying the dishwasher $19 is going to bankrupt you. It’s if you pay him $19, what are you going to pay the sous chef? That’s the part that people forget about."
- Andrew Hoffman, co-owner of Comal and The Advocate in Berkeley, where the city council has discussed raising the minimum wage to $19

Regarding how hard it is to hold on to staff right now: "I’ve had three hostesses stolen; they’re being paid $85,000 a year to be receptionists at tech companies that shall go unnamed. And by the way, I can’t tell them not to do it — the lifestyle is so much better.”
-Anna Weinberg of Big Night Restaurant Group (Marlowe, Park Tavern, The Cavalier, Leo's Oyster Bar)

Regarding fast-casual concepts and the rise of delivery apps: "If we have a team of cooks prepping an order for 100, they can serve them with less labor hours than three employees at the register can serve 100 people. It’s not glamorous, but it’s an adjustment. If you’re a restaurateur today and not using the hundreds of apps available to you, then, for many reasons, you’re behind."
- Matt Semmelhack, co-owner of AQ and Bon Marché, and the upcoming fast-casual FiDi pita bar, Sababa.

On how East Coast restaurateurs are all suddenly clamoring to expand here: "From the national-press standpoint, San Francisco looks like the gold rush again. People want to get in. But I don’t think they’ve done the due diligence for how expensive it is to operate in a city like this."
- Dennis Leary

More on why your dinners are just going to keep getting more expensive: "[Customers are] going to have to stop asking us to subsidize their lifestyle. You’re going to have to pay double for your steak if you want to live in this fabulous city. I can’t absorb it anymore."
- Anna Weinberg

On still being hopeful that you can make it as a first-time restaurateur: "The fact that I’m opening a tasting menu-style restaurant with no tipping scares the hell out of me. Not because I don’t think we’ll be amazing, but will I be able to fill my restaurant every night, or will someone bill me as a special-occasion place? Should I just open a burger-and-pizza joint and have roast chicken on the menu?... [But] I want to experience owning my own restaurant in San Francisco. For me, the struggle’s worth it."
- Kim Alter, former Haven and Plum chef, who's set to open her first SF restaurant Nightbird in Hayes Valley any month now

Related: How Many San Franciscans Are Rooting For The Tech Economy To Tank?

As they sometimes do with towns they consider their curious backwater cousins, the New York Times has taken up the current state of San Francisco, macro-psychologically, today in yet another piece about the tensions surrounding the tech industry here — specifically, how more and more non-tech-employed people are gleefully rooting for the bubble to burst. We have, of course, been talking about this on SFist for a while now, and we've arrived in a new year when it finally feels like the flow of venture capital has slowed, layoffs are becoming more common news, Zynga is selling that huge goddamn building they own, rents are anecdotally coming down a smidge, and maybe, just maybe, the madness is going to stop.

Certainly people who have faced eviction in the last couple of years or had their housing threatened have been dying for this to happen. But outside the media, is there evidence that a lot of San Franciscans are really gunning for an economic downturn? Like, what about restaurant workers and owners — certainly they still want the seats filled — or others dependent on the flow of boomtime dollars?

The Times notes that a December survey of Bay Area adults showed 39 percent saying things are "headed in the wrong direction," up from 29 percent a year earlier — but easily a good number of those people could be tech folk tired of stepping over the homeless, or tech-employed liberals who think we need more affordable housing. (Also, the Times uses a photo of this same building on Duboce Park that we snapped a couple weeks ago, with those two renters advertising their eviction.)

They quote a number of residents, including a local teacher, who say that things feel like they've gotten out of hand. They speak to Delfina chef-owner Craig Stoll, too, who echoes things that he said to SFist last year about how he's grateful on the one hand for all the business, but frustrated all the same that his cooks can't afford to live here, and the competition for qualified kitchen staff has become so fierce as a result.

Just a quick informal poll:

Perhaps the most most democratically San Franciscan sentiment in the Times piece comes from a mother in the Mission who's tired of fighting for curb space with tech shuttles outside her child's Mission school. "If only there were some way to prevent the haves from having it all," she said.

Previously: SoMa Corner Billboard Becomes Oracle Of Tech Bubbles Past And Present
Life After The Boom: What Will Happen When This Bubble Bursts

Steamed barbecue pork buns at Yank Sing were $3.50 in 2005. Now they'll set you back $5.50. A Saturday night dinner at Chez Panisse was $75 back then — this coming weekend it'll stand at $125.

A lot has changed about dining in San Francisco since 11 years ago, where the Chronicle begins their price comparison of signature dishes at top Bay Area restaurants, and it's not just prices.

The whole game is different, as Kim Alter of Nightbird observed in conversation with Eater at a Golden Gate Restaurant Association panel discussion last night. "When opening a restaurant, we have conversations like, ‘Should we have Instagrammable light in here?’ and it’s mind-blowing because it’s about the food, but it’s changed in the last five to ten years in what you need to think about when opening a restaurant and how people eat now."

Tracking 22 dishes and prix-fixe menus from 14 top Bay Area restaurants since 2005, the Chronicle found that menu prices rose at about double the rate of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Bay Area consumer price index. While the consumer price index swelled 27.6 percent since 2005 and 13.6 percent from 2010 to 2015 and, the dishes the Chronicle watched went up in price by 52 percent since 2005, 26 percent since 2010, and even 7.5 percent just in the last year. But why?

"I've always said that if a line cook at a restaurant could make a fair living wage in San Francisco, no one would be able to afford to eat at a restaurant in San Francisco." Thomas McNaughton, the chef and owner of Flour+Water, Central Kitchen, and Salumeria, chimed in. With restaurateurs David Steele and David White, his Ne Timeas Restaurant Group also operates Trick Dog, Aatxe, and Cafe Du Nord. "The $26 entree turns into [the] $56 entree," McNaughton continued, "There are so many people in SF and NYC right now putting their necks on the line of essentially an experience of, ‘How do we make the economics of a restaurant work?’ It’s something I’d love to know the answer for myself."

Not to get all "Wage Labour and Capital," but San Francisco's rising cost of living has called for commensurate compensation for restaurant industry workers. To keep a place at the table, restaurateurs like Alter and McNaughton have difficult calculations to make.

Let's look at a hypothetical menu. Prices account for food costs, and across the board, those have gone up. Previously subsidized ingredients like beef, a story in itself, now bear costs more in line with their actual value.

Rent goes into the cost of a dish, too, and though some top restaurants own the buildings in which they operate, very many do not.

There's the profit margin you want — roughly 10 percent, maybe.

And then there's labor. That's the big one that's risen in several ways, with the Chronicle writing that "high prices are, in part, a measure of our political success," meaning with regard to labor laws.

Beyond wages, consider workers comp. San Francisco’s Health Care Security Ordinance, est. 2008, says that businesses of 20 employees working eight or more hours per week require some health care compensation. For larger businesses that's $2.53 per employee per hour worked, and for smaller ones, it's $1.68.

"When you go out to eat, you’re not thinking about how much the chair you sat on cost," Kim Alter also said. "You’re not thinking rent is $12,000 a month. There’s a strong conversation about how much apartments cost per month, but not about how much restaurants cost per month. When they take that bite of food, a diner is not thinking about how much it costs to process that and pay your cook $25 an hour. You’re just thinking, ‘I can pay $2.50 for chicken at Safeway.’ It’s an education of people understanding what things actually cost."

Coincidentally, Zuni's Pilgram also has a point to make about Safeway chicken. "People sometimes ask, ‘If I can buy a [whole] chicken at Safeway for $6, why am I paying $50?’ Well, my chicken is better than Safeway’s. Then there’s the wood for the oven, there’s the person manning the oven — who is going to be making at the least $17 an hour — plus the linens, electricity, gas, the art on the walls, the building gets painted so it looks nice, there’s a cleaning crew, and at the end of the day, you go home and you don’t have to do the dishes.”

That famous chicken at Zuni, by the way, has gone from $28 in 1995 and $48 in 2014 to $54 in 2016.

Related: San Francisco Has Always Been A Pretty Expensive Place To Live

Though late-morning and afternoon trading on Wall Street has seen all four stocks bump up a bit, this morning looked really dismal for the local tech sector as the stock prices of Apple and Yahoo neared 52-week lows and both Twitter and Square were trading at just pennies over their IPO prices, as Socketsite and CBS 5 took note.

Furthermore, big tech stocks Facebook and Google both took a battering this morning, and both are down between 2 and 3 percent as of this writing.

As CBS reports, "The plunge coincided with the continued drop in the price of crude oil," and this is because "Investors worry that the global glut in crude will cause deep damage to oil and gas companies and lead to more bankruptcies and layoffs in the sector."

Also, more ominous figures: 1300 stocks hit new lows during morning trading, the highest number recorded since the dark days of November 2008.

Netflix has recovered from a big, 7-percent drop this morning, with it's stock near its closing price yesterday. Yahoo remains down 5 percent, 1.57 points below its Tuesday close; Square is down 3.8 percent; and Twitter is now up 3 percent, a half point above yesterday.

Needless to say, off in the near distance, we keep hearing that tell-tale pop-pop.

Related: Life After The Boom: What Will Happen When This Bubble Bursts

The average wages for industries in the United States went up by 3.1 percent for 2014 to reach $51,364 according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Chronicle ran last year's numbers, parsed out by commercial real estate services firm JLL, to highlight the tech industry share of it all. In San Francisco, they discovered, workers in the technology sector saw their wages — salary, bonuses, income on stock options, severance pay, meals, and more — increase by 12.8 percent from 2013, moving to $176,275 from $156,518.

Last year, the Chronicle registered that 2013 salaries were up 19 percent from 2012, so you could call this year is a slowdown and be technically right. The fields JLL considered as tech were "computer/electronic product manufacturing, electrical equipment manufacturing, e-retailers, online auctions, computer systems design, data processing and hosting, software publishers, and other information services."

But why pay more to live and work in San Francisco when you could make more and live on (a bit) less in San Mateo County? The 2013 numbers there were particularly high thanks to the Facebook effect, the dial moving on $3.3 billion stock option gains for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “It’s crazy how just one company can move the needle, but San Mateo’s tech-job base is small” said Amber Schiada, JLL Vice President. So all in all for 2014, San Mateo average tech wages were down 23 percent — to $240,663. Factoring out Facebook, they were up from roughly $210,000.

Santa Clara County might also tempt technologists — the average tech company wage there was up 8.4 percent in 2014 to $211,874. Alameda and Contra Costa counties saw a six percent rise last year to $121,747. Recapping the top three — this is nationwide:

San Mateo County: $240,663
-23.5%

Santa Clara County: 211,874
+8.4

San Francisco: $176,275
+12.8

Related: These Are The Average Salaries In SF's Top Industries