SAN FRANCISCO — No, Laura Cunningham sighed--again. The downturn had not, repeat not, made tables at the French Laundry suddenly easy to get.
All she'd said was that cancellations at the five-star restaurant were up slightly. Thus, those who hadn't reserved two months in advance had a better shot on the same-day waiting list, maybe. But in Silicon Valley, no sign, not even an offhand remark from a wine country restaurant manager, is too arcane now to be turned into an economic index. "Cool economy cuts crowds at hot restaurants," heralded the San Jose headline that ricocheted this month through the Bay Area, touching off waves of false hope among foodies.
"I should have mentioned our wine sales, which are up 20%," Cunningham joked, between wannabe walk-ins. "Maybe it means that people are drinking their sorrows away."
The economy has been unsettling from coast to coast all year now. But--in standard America-only-more-so mode--the recession watch in Silicon Valley has gathered its own, characteristically inordinate sort of steam.
Here as elsewhere, indicators are hopelessly muddled, but the mix has yielded a more-stubborn-than-usual refusal to settle for anything less than definitive answers. If data on homes, jobs, profits and venture funding won't say for sure whether this slowdown is a blip or a disaster, the thinking seems to go, then maybe there's a clue on the black-tie circuit. Or the Gulfstream market. Or the progress of construction on Larry Ellison's Japanese mansion.
In recent weeks, local news outlets have attempted to measure the situation in gloating have-nots, psychiatric hospital admissions and techies in attendance at a speech by the Dalai Lama. Cocktail conversation in Silicon Valley has fixated on whether rush-hour traffic has suddenly thinned out, and if so, whether it's due to dot-com layoffs. A San Mateo BMW mechanic confided last week that he has taken to counting the number of clients who no longer give him stock tips. This month's open question on the Bay Area society scene has been whether new tech money will again make the Napa Valley Wine Auction the blowout it was last year.
"Yeah, it used to be Lexus dealers," chuckled Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, recalling the alternative indices in California's last economic downturn. "Problem was, no matter what happened, the Lexus dealers kept telling people that sales were up."
