The Google menu exposed

What's eating the search giant

By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 2nd March 2006 09:29 GMT

Free whitepaper – Systems management simplified

An army marches on its stomach, Napoleon Bonaparte famously declared. Silicon Valley's more benevolent employers put this maxim into practice with on-campus dining facilities to keep staff happy, and therefore, productive.

Of all the companies in the Bay Area, Google is the most famed -envied, even - among the tech chattering classes for its cooking. Forget the engineer's staple diet of pizza, Jolt Cola and all the cookies you can handle. Think Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Thai. And lots of it, too.

In a piece titled "Internet giant's free, gourmet global cuisine powers its workforce while offering chefs and producers a place to shine", SF Gate reports that five cafes on Google's Mountain View campus, churn out more than 200 recipes each day.

The latest, Café 150, opened for business on Google's campus offering: "a robust broth teeming with slices of beef skirt steak and hand-made yam noodles; clams sauteed with disks of handmade Chinese sausage and wisps of fresh basil; a sandwich bar with nine made from-scratch condiments, and grilled romaine lettuce, persimmon and poblano chiles; and composed salads such as wild rice and hazelnut, and crispy tofu slaw."

No wonder the "lunchtime line wrapped from the dining room into the work cubicles" on Café 150's opening day. According to one Googler: "We eat here because it's better food than in restaurants, it's healthy, there's variety and it's more casual."

Now if only they could get Google Video looking half-way decent. ®

Free whitepaper – Dell PowerEdge server benchmarks