SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Starting Monday in San Francisco, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s return to office directive goes into effect.
That means roughly an additional 8,000 city workers will be back in the office 4 days a week.
That move was supposed to start in April, but it was postponed after reaching a deal with two major unions.
Many of the workers will spend money at small businesses along the way.
“They’re maybe stopping at a coffee shop, or they’re stopping to get a bagel, so those are sales that places haven’t seen before,” said Amy Cleary with Golden Gate Restaurant Association.
This is all part of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s mandate to get city staff back to pre-pandemic levels.
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According to the city’s Human Resources Department, 24,000 city employees, 70% of the city’s workforce, already work in-person five or more days a week.
“In my opinion, that would help getting business back because I see all these restaurants not having customers. A lot of my favorite stores are closing,” said San Francisco resident Lelia Zadeh.
“I think that would be a tremendous benefit for the city. We have too many places where we don’t have active retail because there haven’t been enough people around,” said San Francisco resident Alec Bash.
Michael Rodriguez is the owner of Cadillac Bar and Grill at 9th and Market at the former X building. He says it has been really tough since the pandemic.
“Business has been down about 80% from the volume we’ve been doing in 2019,” said Rodriguez.
MORE: SF has more workers returning to the office than LA but still lags behind other cities, data shows
San Francisco is finally seeing some progress getting people back in the office after the pandemic.
Rodriguez’s restaurant, like many others, is only open for dinner right now. According to Rodriguez, he will have to ease into reopening for lunch because he just doesn’t have enough staff.
He thinks bringing city employees back is the right move.
“It’s a blessing, I knew things would come around,” he said.
We talked to Fructoso Bibiano, owner of Picacho Mexican Food Truck, who said business was good on Monday and he was happy everyone was back.
Across from the city hall is Annie’s Hot Dogs and Snacks.
“It will be great. The employees around here are the majority of our business. So people coming back to work 4-5 days a week will help us a lot,” said Morgan Martin, one of the workers at Annie’s.
“The more people we can get out to have a lunch, to sit outside and enjoy some free music, is such a huge part of the city’s comeback,” said Steffen Franz, live music producer for Illuminate the Arts.
The city put out a list of activities to entice workers to spend more time around City Hall.
“Normally, our events are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but this particular week we decided to do a Monday event to welcome everybody back. It sounds like they are gonna want to do more events weekly. There is the farmers market here on Wednesdays and Sundays, but I think there will be more afternoon and evening events,” said Franz.
Business leaders say having city workers return to the office, especially in the Downtown area, means more tax dollars. That’s a big win for the city’s economy.
“For the past few years, SF has been dead-last in North America in our recovery–especially downtown,” said Robbie Silver, Downtown SF Partnership Executive Director. “Those ground-floor businesses, especially those mom and pops, have been suffering for way too long and they need people to come back.”
Many city employees we spoke with wanted to remain anonymous. Some who came back on Monday were upset. Those who’ve been coming to the office in person for more than 4 days said it was about time for the rest of the group to do the same.
“I think it sucks, and honestly, they should adopt more work from home because I think that at the point that we are at, we have the technology to be able to do all the work that we can do at the office back at home,” said one of the city employees.
SFMTA’s director said they are making strategic changes to welcome thousands back.
“We will be adding trips on the 1 Express which will offer quick connections but will also help make sure we don’t have too much crowding on the 1 California,” said SFMTA Director Julie Kirschbaum. “We are also adding service to the 30X so that people who are coming from the Marina have a quick connection if they are coming to the financial district.”
Bringing more people back to the office is a major move some hope will help San Francisco bounce back.
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