The San Francisco Chronicle just released its latest Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants ranking, and if nothing else, it's a reminder of something we should never take for granted: this region's food scene is genuinely, absurdly world-class.

Love or hate these listicles — and there's plenty of reason to be skeptical of any ranking that tries to compress the staggering diversity of Bay Area dining into a neat hundred — the exercise does highlight a real competitive advantage San Francisco and its neighbors hold over basically every other metro in the country. We punch way above our weight on restaurants per capita, chef talent, and sheer culinary ambition.

But here's the part the food critics rarely talk about: the economics underneath the plates. Running a restaurant in San Francisco is a brutal, margin-destroying endeavor. Between sky-high commercial rents, a labyrinth of permits, mandatory fees, and a regulatory environment that treats every new business like a suspect, it's a miracle any of these places survive long enough to make a list. The restaurants that thrive here do so despite City Hall, not because of it.

As one SF resident put it, "SF is amazing" — and they're right. But amazing doesn't happen by accident. It happens because talented people are still willing to bet their savings on a city that makes it unreasonably hard to open and operate a small business. Every shuttered storefront on Valencia or Irving is a reminder that the pipeline isn't infinite.

If the city actually wants to protect its crown jewel — its food culture — the conversation needs to go beyond rankings and Instagram hype. Streamline permitting. Cut the red tape for small operators. Stop treating restaurateurs like ATMs for every new city fee someone dreams up in a budget meeting.

A Top 100 list is fun. But the Top 100 restaurants that would have existed if San Francisco got out of its own way? That's the list we'll never see — and it's probably the more interesting one.