Inside the Dreamforce restaurant boom

Salesforce’s 2023 Dreamforce conference pulled professionals into San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, flooding the typically undertrafficked area with eager eyes, thick wallets and empty stomachs. The often-deserted restaurants surrounding the conference grounds hummed with a buzz of healthy activity, even as the conference offered a robust selection of boxed lunches.

During peak hours, it was hard to avoid ironed button-ups and baby-blue lanyards while waiting in line for a table. (By the looks of this year’s Dreamforce crowd, the sun has set on the once-omnipresent Patagonia vest.) 

To better quantify the Dreamforce restaurant boom, we spoke with managers, owners and employees of five different SoMa restaurants.

Elias Gonzalez, manager of Mission Street’s Mel’s Drive-in, told SFGATE that 2023’s Dreamforce traffic was “on the low end” compared with previous years. Still, the restaurant has seen about twice as many customers as usual this week, by his estimate. Mel’s has more employees working in every position to keep up, although it hasn’t been particularly challenging, Gonzalez said.

Kazim Altan, owner of Zevi Cafe and Soma Restaurant on Fifth Street, echoed Gonzalez’s sentiments. While business saw a bump, he said there were about 75% fewer customers compared with last year’s Dreamforce. Each year, the conference brings in fewer customers than it did the year before, he said.

Gains were not distributed evenly across restaurants. Hasna Lagsaibi, cashier at Oasis Grill, told SFGATE that the restaurant had five times as many diners as on regular days (Oasis is immediately across the street from the conference grounds). Meanwhile, Delarosa, a popular Roman-style pizzeria, saw only a 30% to 40% bump, according to Eddie Concha, the restaurant’s vice president of operations.  

Lagsaibi did not work at Oasis at the time of Dreamforce 2022, but Concha corroborated other restaurateurs’ experiences: 2023’s conference brought in fewer customers compared with previous years. 

On Friday, Sept. 8, the San Francisco Travel Association told the San Francisco Business Times that the conference was expected to bring an estimated $62 million of direct spending into San Francisco in 2023 — significantly higher compared with previous years. Are the estimates wrong, or are attendees spending their money elsewhere?

Still, any uptick in foot traffic is a welcome change for an area that has become synonymous with empty offices and retail closures in recent years.