Apple to Build Own Restaurant So Employees Can Eat Without Being Spied On

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Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.

We’ve all been there. You’re eating a Waldorf salad with your coworkers, talking about last night’s Seinfeld and sharing proprietary secrets, when all of a sudden you notice a guy from Microsoft behind you quietly taking notes. Well, it looks like Apple has decided to protect its employees from such scenarios by building its own off-campus restaurant.

According to the Mercury News, Apple got permission at a Tuesday night planning commission meeting to start building a 21,468-square-foot restaurant in Cupertino. Sadly, tourists and locals who don’t work for Apple won’t get to dine there:

“We like to provide a level of security so that people and employees can feel comfortable talking about their business, their research and whatever project they’re engineering without fear of competition overhearing their conversations,” said Dan Whisenhunt, Apple’s director of real estate facilities, said at Tuesday’s meeting. “That is a real issue today in Cupertino because we’ve got other companies here in our same business.”

The two-story facility will mainly service Apple employees who work in satellite buildings of Apple’s main campus and should expect around 228 visits per hour during its mid-day lunch peak. The gauntlet has been thrown, Google and Facebook; let the battle of Internet company lunches begin.

[via The Next Web, Mercury News]

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