Cayenne pepper ginger shots, homemade lemon tarts, and Michelin-starred chefs - here's what employees at Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies are offered for free
Facebook has an on-site Philz Coffee.
The social media giant offers employees free unlimited food spanning healthy and guilty-pleasure options. Many of the on-campus cafeterias at the Menlo Park headquarters are more like specialized restaurants, from barbecue joints and burger shacks to smoothie stands and ice cream shops. There's even an outpost of the uber-hip Philz Coffee on campus.
As one Menlo Park employee on Glassdoor put it, the meal benefits have its upsides and downsides — "pros: free food; cons: got fat."
Employees at Facebook's new Mountain View offices won't have that problem. When the location opens this fall, free food won't be offered to employees there as part of a city restriction forbidding tech companies in the region from supplying fully subsidized meals to staff.
Apple employees don't get free food — but they do get subsidized cafes.
Apple is one of the tech giants that does not offer its employees free food (with the exception of free dinner for iOS or OS X team members) but there are multiple subsidized cafes.
The new "Spaceship" headquarters in Cupertino, California, has a cafe that's four stories high, with a massive glass door and the capacity for 4,000 hungry employees, according to a 2017 Wired profile.
The cafes subsidize everything except ingredient cost, and allow employees to pay using a payroll deduction plan. This means that although meals aren't, free employees are able to get a nice tax break.
The menu isn't too shabby either: Employees can have a custom-made burrito, salad, pasta, or pizza, and there's a juice bar that gives out ginger, cayenne pepper, and beat juice combo shots.
And though food isn't completely free like the company's tech neighbors, at least the apples are.
Twitter has free snacks on every floor.
Twitter's HQ in San Francisco offers employees free breakfast and lunch. There are lots of fresh options and a kitchen with snacks on every floor.
Source: Glassdoor
Google has so much free food, employees worry about gaining the "Google 15."
If there's one tech company responsible for elevating workplace cafeterias from a standard job perk to an over-the-top recruiting tool, it's Google.
The internet search giant larded its "Googleplex" headquarters in Mountain View with an assortment of free restaurants designed to serve every palate, dietary choice, and time of day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner).
Being health-conscious seems to be a focal point at the tech company — according to one Quora user who says she works at Google, zero-calorie drinks are available in cafes and are put at eye level, with higher-calorie drinks placed lower behind frosted glass.
The snack bars at Google are apparently known colloquially as "microkitchens" and are placed strategically between separate teams to encourage cross-team brainstorming and interaction.
There's apparently a snack bar always within 100 feet from an employee, an easy access point that a Glassdoor user pointed out could make you gain the "Google 15" if you're not careful.
LinkedIn offers locally sourced food.
Around the same time it was acquired by Microsoft in 2016, LinkedIn debuted a new office location in downtown San Francisco.
The black glass skyscraper comes with a gourmet kitchen offering employees free food for lunch and breakfast from a menu that rotates daily. Items like salads, lemon tarts made in-house, sandwiches, and stir fry are included, as well as kombucha.
According to one Quora user, employees at the company's Sunnyvale location are afforded all of these perks, plus free dinner.
The new San Francisco cafeteria also sports a wall adorned with signs detailing where the food being served is sourced from locally.
Salesforce intentionally didn't build a cafeteria in its new tower, but it does have some free snacks.
Salesforce deliberately did not include a dining hall in its new 61-floor San Francisco headquarters, Salesforce Tower.
The company — seemingly already attuned to the concerns of tech firms not being part of the community — said it wanted to encourage employees to step outside and eat at the neighborhood restaurants.
Still, the office has kitchens stocked with fresh fruit, coffee, and sodas.
Pinterest hosts a company-wide happy hour every Friday.
Pinterest employees are offered free breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, as well as a company-hosted happy hour is served every Friday, according to Glassdoor employee reviews.
Employees also have access to The Point cafe in the downstairs lobby, a recently-opened coffee shop offering coffee, tea, and sandwiches. The cafe is also open to the public.
Airbnb has beer and wine on tap.
Airbnb employees are offered free breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the company's AteAteAte cafe, named after its office address at 888 Brannan St., according to Wired.
Beer and wine are served on tap, and espresso machines are available as well, according to employee reviews on Glassdoor.
Instagram's New York employees can visit the Frozen Palm, a free juice and gelato bar.
Instagram offers a delicious free treat to employees at its New York City headquarters: unlimited juice and gelato.
The company's in-house dessert stand, the Frozen Palm, serves 18 flavors or smoothies and juices, which are made to order. They even have names inspired by Instagram filters, like Gingham and X-Pro II.
You can also grab a gelato in one of more than 20 flavors. The dessert is so popular, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said employees have started keeping track of how many days in a row they've eaten gelato.
Beyond sweet treats, Instagram has a fully stocked bar on site called the Thirsty Flamingo where employees can help themselves to beer, wine, and cocktails. Plus, there's a kitchen stocked with free healthy snacks, cereal, and beverages.
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