In my experience this is becoming less and less true, smaller cities are really catching up, it's not 2010 anymore. My pet theory is that social networks like Instagram have done a good job spreading fashion and food experiences/expectations that were previously exclusives to big city centers.
I haven't found it to be even remotely true for the food my family is inclined to eat. Every time I've gone to visit hip small college towns for the last 5 years, I've eagerly sought out the talked-about eateries, and they were all... distinctly mediocre compared to NYC or Bay Area or LA food.
You still can't find anything but Americanized Asian food, even the California-cuisine upscale places are decidedly mediocre, and the food trucks are... fine.
Certainly, it's better than it was at the margin, but it really depends on what your baseline is.
Dropping 50$/person on dinner & drinks in sf isn’t that much money when your rent is 50x+ that figure.
If you want a great literal hole in the wall, try Yamo in the Mission. Burmese food, grand total of 6 seats (all at the bar) in the restaurant, and the entire kitchen is right in front of you. $6 entrees.
While I haven't been up to SF proper for food and barhopping in a few years now, the Lark up in the financial district is much more of what I'd call a good cheap bar. I tend to bristle a bit at people dissing the SF food and drink scene, but I have to remind myself that with few exceptions my favorite places in the Bay Area aren't actually in SF itself. The metro area as a whole has virtually everything you can imagine at a very wide range of price points. I suspect one could make a case that the most interesting stuff happening is in the East Bay and South Bay, though.
Within a narrow window. The diversity and turnover of New York or London’s food offerings compared with the Bay Area’s is on par with the latter’s offerings in relation to Fresno’s. If anything, the Bay offers its uniqueness in the middle tier of immigrant fusion.
Los Angeles and New York City have a substantially larger cultural footprint than other cities.
Even though the variety of food, music, etc. is growing quickly elsewhere, it’s really not the same.
That's a poor choice to judge a restaurant on. You need to base your judgement on things you can't or won't cook at home because it takes too much time, is too complicated, or uses ingredients that are difficult to get.
In a sign of the crazy times we live in, Chez Panisse has started doing takeout. First time I tried it, I got a BLT sandwich. Exactly what it says on the tin: bacon, lettuce, tomato, no weird spices or creative takes or deconstruction. Just a stock BLT sandwich—except better in every way. I'm not even sure how. I would not have thought there was that much room to improve on a BLT through better ingredients and execution, but apparently there is.
Anyway, if you're in Berkeley, I would highly recommend giving it a try.
I don't go to restaurants to be entertained by the food or "impressed" by the "creativity" of the chef, and I'd wager neither do most people.
There are plenty of “sit down” restaurants that aren’t fancy, but are more than “solid takeaway” that fit in this picture. And these are what most folks actually think of when they picture dining out.
From that perspective, eating out in SF always felt like a good deal because for $15 you can get some truly exceptional farm to table food.
But even if we expand the statement to "outside a major city" or even "outside a major metro area", I think a lot of places are culturally devoid suburbs (though I probably would have picked a nicer way of putting it).
I would wager that the majority of suburbs in the US don't have much variety in cuisine, and while communities will certainly have a few stand-out restaurants, there will also be a lot of mediocre fast food, fast casual, and pizza shops. I grew up in places like that, some of my family lives in places like that, and some friends who used to live in cities, but moved out for more space, also live in places like that.
Get too far outside Seattle, Portland, the SF bay area, greater LA, Chicago, Boston, NYC, DC, Austin, Dallas, Nashville, and even many smaller cities, and there really isn't much to write home about when it comes to food. And for some of those cities, "too far outside" can be as little as a half hour drive.
Anecdotally, I moved from the bay area to somewhere near los angeles a while ago, and the americanized chinese food here sucks compared to what I could get in the bay area. And it costs twice as much! :(
The difference in food options between SF (where I am now) and OC (or LA vs OC) is absolutely astounding. Its really not even close. Its gotten better but large cities are still orders of magnitude better.
Sincerely, the League for Reducing Hyperbole on the Internet
PS: “Everybody else”, “absolutely astounding”, “its [sic] really not even close”...sit down and have a nice glass of warm milk and think about what you wrote. :-)
The quality is what it is, but at least someone is trying to give you something interesting to do.
Or at least that was the case in 2019. I really hope we return to valuing in-person interaction when it's safe to do so.
As one example, NYC opens Governor’s Island to the public for only part of the year. Food service comes in the form of a “food court” made up of a bunch of food trucks/container kitchens.
[1] The "Chili Monster" at the Dillinger in Boulder City, NV, in case you were wondering. https://www.thedillinger.com/ (Not to be confused with Boulder, CO.)
Going out of your way to not eat local stuff is completely pointless to me. People take quite a lot of pride in having good stuff specific to their area.
The ingredients are sourced locally for the most part, and the imports are about as good as they can get, and substitutions are sober.
It's hard to share scales with Americans.
I can't imagine there were very many Indian people there, but the food was amazing.
Keep a long runway in an emergency fund, keep your professional network warm, always be ready to bounce if your employer tries to change your quality of life for the worse (mandatory return to an office somewhere, for example). (Disclosure: This is how I operate, and have worked from home for over 7 years.)
[1] https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/companies-switching-remot... ("27 Companies That Have Switched to Long-Term Remote Work")
Certainly I believe that remote work was already on the way to becoming more and more accepted, but by moving out you're still limiting your employment prospects to those companies that decide not to focus more on in-person roles. Maybe that will still work out in the long-run, but I still think there's significant long-term financial benefit in maximizing your number of potential employers.
Plus, if you're expecting to move back to San Francisco at some point, right now is the time to do it while prices are through the floor. You're far better off moving in right now at a 35% discount—which is permanent given rent control—than trying to come back in another year when COVID-19 is (hopefully) over and people are flooding back in.
You apply at companies with remote roles. I haven't lived in SF though, and would never do so, so I can't speak to solving for timing the market there.
When you got major companies like Twitter, google, Facebook, and others already saying WFH is a permanent option that’s put pressure on others to figure out how to make it work.
Talent is needed at many, many companies and if the talent is a.) needed and b.) good enough the company will make “exceptions” to the rule.
Enough companies make enough exceptions and it’s a mainstay policy.
Overall, the other part is that companies that now offer remote work as a permanent option may not have to pay SF salaries so that’s a bonus to the company. It’ll go both ways, the company can say I’m not requiring you to live in high COL area and we have an office in X city, we pay 10% above the market average of ~35-40 cities so they’re still competitive on pay (assumption being that most companies move to this model, FAANG may overpay still but that’s always been the case) so now what do you do?
Literally the only thing keeping me from listing my house right now and moving to a different area is that not enough Bay Area companies have committed to permanent WFH yet. Once that happens, I'm gone.
there is a huge difference, not only in the kinds of work you can put on your resume, but in the quality of co-workers, and what you can learn from them.
You can approximate that experience in some other areas (Provo, Boston, Austin, San Luis Obispo, etc) but a LOT of American cities are still technological backwaters, and there's nothing available but garbage jobs that will drain your soul and turn you into a code zombie.
If companies look like they're aligning on more of a hybrid model where you can WFH but they expect you to show your face in the office every so often, then I'd have to stick to $CA$ and maybe head out somewhere on US-50 between Folsom and Placerville, or maybe way up I-5 somewhere towards Shasta.
It’s great when you have a family with kids and you’re less career focused. But I noticed my comp increased almost 2x their’s over the same timeframe.
This is also true when you're at a home office, and you get acquired, and it becomes a remote office. Your career gets fucked.
I've had it happen to me over and over again; and it's very different when you work at the headquarters.
It's my biggest worry about 'permanent WFH'. It's that I'll end up being like the remote-office nightmare all over again.
If the commitment is there for WFH to become an option for all, corporations will promote one or more WFH VPs to send the message that it’s OK, as occurred for women and minorities. I’d guess they’d choose rising stars with personal commitments that make WFH the obvious humane and moral choice.
If you have employees who have been working productively remotely for a year, it's probably better to find a way to keep them happy and working than to have to find a new employee.
All had the same rationale: taxes and housing were simply far too high when they could work remotely and live anywhere else. Sure, you don't get the same outdoors, food or retail scene, but plenty of places have those things too.
I imagine the move to working remotely has made that move possible for more people than before, but those I know aren't making temporary moves, they are buying houses.