ZeroCater's minimum order size is 10, if I recall.
Imagine you could get an extra half-hour of productive conversations out of people for ten bucks each. That's paying people $20/hr! What a good deal for engineers in the Bay Area.
"Imagine you could get an extra half-hour of productive conversations out of people for ten bucks each. That's paying people $20/hr! What a good deal for engineers in the Bay Area."
It is, and it isn't.
I might be an oddball, but I prefer to get away from the office for an hour a day. It's become conventional wisdom in the valley echo chamber that catered lunch is a "productivity win", but there's a lot to be said for the change in perspective that getting out of the office provides. When I go out for lunch, I feel more relaxed, more creative, and calmer about my work. And don't forget -- just because I'm sitting around a table eating with my co-workers does not mean that I'm talking about work (in fact, I suspect it's a net-neutral benefit, if you're only looking at worker productivity).
Last, but not least, there's a health component: carry-out for lunch, every day, is a good way to kill yourself. My cholesterol levels (and body weight) shot up dramatically when I was eating take-out on a daily basis. Google cafeterias serve healthy food; cheap restaurant food doesn't measure up. Once I went back to finding my own lunch, my cholesterol levels dropped back to normal.
Not to mention that it's a really nice perk that people talk about positively. It can be basically cheap PR. Free lunch may not be a reason to work somewhere, but it's something that current employees will mention and anything that gets them to paint your business in a positive light is worth something.
Imagine you could get an extra half-hour of productive conversations out of people for ten bucks each. That's paying people $20/hr! What a good deal for engineers in the Bay Area.