San Francisco Eases Off on Banning Free-Food Company Cafeterias

San Francisco city planners, responding to myriad complaints, backtracked on a proposal to ban companies from opening cafeterias offering free food to employees.

The city Planning Commission, after more than an hour of testimony, voted unanimously Oct. 25 to condition approval of new workplace cafeterias on public access and that companies provide workers with vouchers to use at local restaurants.

Employee cafeterias are part of the ecosystem at tech companies with offices in the city, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Twitter Inc., and Facebook Inc.

Business, including tech companies, and even labor howled in July as the restaurant industry-backed proposal began ...