Here's a small but telling sign of where San Francisco's economy is heading: catering coordinators from Southern California are actively scouting Bay Area kitchens to feed office workers in the Financial District and Silicon Valley.

An independent catering coordinator based in SoCal is now putting out feelers for local kitchens that can handle weekly office catering — buffet-style lunches and breakfasts for groups of 15 to 250 people. The menu specs are detailed and demanding: three proteins, two sides, a vegan option, a big salad, three desserts with gluten-free accommodations, all hot and ready by noon.

On one hand, this is good news. It means companies are bringing people back to the office — at least enough to justify regular catered meals. The Financial District, which looked like a ghost town for the better part of three years, apparently has enough warm bodies showing up to warrant weekly lunch spreads. That's real economic activity trickling down to local kitchens, servers, and food suppliers.

On the other hand, it's worth asking: why is a SoCal middleman the one capturing this business? The answer probably lies in the fact that San Francisco's regulatory environment and cost structure have made it harder for local catering operations to scale efficiently. Between health department permitting headaches, sky-high commercial kitchen rents, and the city's ever-growing thicket of employer mandates, it's no wonder an outside coordinator sees an arbitrage opportunity.

The real winners here should be SF's small kitchen operators — the ones nimble enough to take on steady, predictable weekly clients without drowning in overhead. Consistent revenue from corporate catering beats the feast-or-famine cycle of one-off events any day.

But let's not miss the bigger picture. When out-of-town operators find it easier to organize your city's lunch economy than the people who actually live here, that's a sign your local business climate needs work. San Francisco should be generating these entrepreneurs, not importing them.

Still — office workers eating lunch at their desks in FiDi? We'll take it. Baby steps.