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Caffe Mac—legend or fact? Does this Shangri-la of no-compromise corporate consumables actually exist? And if Caffe Mac does exist, does its menu roundly trump the “food” we Mac|Life staffers must hunt and gather within the hostile-to-haute-cuisine hinterlands of our own corporate HQ? I was intent on answering these questions during a recent trip to One Infinite Loop. Read on for the full scoop—and don’t miss my paparazzi shots of The Steve!
Jump to the section of your choice below:
Atmosphere/First Impressions
The Steve Descends
Food Review: The Raw Edition
Disposition: All Good Trays Go to Heaven
For more than 10 years, I’ve suffered talk of Caffe Mac and its abbondanza of delicious food options. As legend has it, this height of schmorga-style dining is located smack dab in the middle of the Apple campus, ready to sate the hunger of a time-challenged work force.
An on-site cafeteria. It must be nice.
Before we get into the review, let me provide some context: On any given day, the typical Mac|Life staffer might be just a single desk-drawer condiment collection away from a Donner Party scenario. If we can’t make it to the taco truck by 12 noon sharp, we are left with the following lunch options: (a) a snack machine, (b) the candy jar intermittently replenished by Human Resources, and (c) what in corporate circles has come to be known as “emergency oatmeal.”
Personally, I also know the whereabouts of a long-forgotten box of apple cider mix packets. One might assume these packets could offer some form of sustenance, or even be used in the fermentation of an alcoholic beverage, Mac|Life’s version of “prison pruno,” which is what it might come to when zombies finally attack.
But an on-site Cafeteria? The mind reels at the implications. And so it was with great anticipation (and even greater jealousy) that I entered the cavernous culinary cornucopia of Caffe Mac.
Oh. My. GOD. My first impression was that I had somehow found my way into the Prepared Foods Department of Whole Foods. Station upon station upon station offered a mind-boggling variety of international cuisine. There were kiosks for burritos, pizza, pasta, sushi, hot entrées, burgers, sandwiches, salads, smoothies, frozen yogurt. They even had a gelato bar.
Then there were the kiosks for Spanish tapas and paellas. For British bangers and mushy peas. For Ethiopian wat and injera bread. And for traditional Inuit preparations of caribou, walrus and seal. Amazing.
OK, truth be told, I didn’t see any kiosks for food from Spain, England, Ethiopia or the Canadian Arctic. But because the Caffe Mac food selection was so incredibly plentiful and varied, I couldn’t help but imagine such exotic cuisines. And, in fact, because this new world order of lunch possibilities was so overwhelming, I found myself paralyzed with indecision. Pizza or past? A sandwich or sushi? Or maybe a bold trifecta of blended and/or frozen delights?
The Apple campus regulars didn’t seem quite so awestruck. The Caffe atmosphere was at a calm, low boil as happy, soon-to-be-well-fed employees gathered in knowing clumps at the more popular food stations. The brick-oven pizza dispensary had a line reaching from Cupertino to Santa Clara—all this despite the fact that the pizzeria was (apparently) no longer making pies to order, a development that (according to rumor) absolutely rocked the Apple work force.
By the time my thought-paralysis subsided, I was ready to order a pizza, but the long line (and a tight schedule) sent me elsewhere. What could be faster than raw food? I thought. And so it was to be: My first dining at Caffe Mac would consist of salad and sushi, fitting choices considering The Steve’s well-publicized fondness for vegetarianism and raw foods. Eat as The Steve does. Surely they save the best heirloom tomatoes for The Steve and his vegetarian brethren, right?
Right?
freyutss
December 10, 2008 at 11:04am
I am tired of hearing about fast-food. When I was busy dealing with some frigidaire parts. I had an awful disease at my stomach and I don't want to eat not even a little piece of this type of food. Fresh vegetables and fruits are the best.
sj.erickson
August 29, 2008 at 9:19am
After reading this article and all the comments and really thinking long and hard about everything, the ultimate and final result is that I'm now hungry. Thus, today, I've decided to eat a quality lunch, though almost certainly not at the same level as experienced by Mr. Phillips. -Scott Erickson in Beaverton, Oregon.
ChristianSchilling
August 28, 2008 at 10:12am
>>>>>>Jon, you are such a loser. >>>>>expierence your mind gettier sluggisher<<<<<<<<<<<<< It's humor you twit. What's next? Writing Johnathan Swift to decry his proposal for the Irish to eat their poor children if they were so hungry and suggesting that bean sprouts would be a welcome alternative? Great Article Jon and funny!
Ben
August 27, 2008 at 7:32pm
Just creepin' around the Apple campus, huh?
:)
It's a good light-hearted piece.
Anton Caramelloli
August 27, 2008 at 6:14am
>> "It’s time for Steve to go middle America. Pork rinds. Bags and bags of them. That’s what The Steve needs."
Jon, you are such a loser.
You just know nothing about living healthy and I could imagine that you're the kind of guy who even has to base some parts of his idea of manhood on this stupid "eating much meat" thing.
I bet I would beat you in any physical discipline. now or in at most in a year even if you've been doing it for a long time.
and if you think "physical" is not your thing then i hope you will sooner not later expierence your mind gettier sluggisher and see how your body is one unit.good-bye
Anton Caramelloli
August 27, 2008 at 12:08pm
i have to apologize for calling you a loser since this is in some imminent respect incorect.
i got upset.
knowledge and achievements in one area though doesn't give you the right to write such stupidities about food.
and i ain't even speaking for the damn pigs. i just want to put a little effort against propagation of willingly holding unaware what's good to eat.
you may be one beeing able to afford such eating behaviour but shifting something like heavy meat-eating away from norms towards luxury (not even has to be in the monetary sense but more in a sense of healthfulness and recognising impact of food on the organism) could result in a healthier earth.
JonPhillips
August 27, 2008 at 1:03pm
Anton, thanks for the follow-up reply, and please don't ever regret speaking your mind. (That's my unsolicted advice, at least. I think as long as people actually attach their real names to what they write, then pretty much anything is fair game.)
As for the pork rind reference, I know what you're saying. One of my sisters teaches raw food preparation classes, and partly as a result of this, I'm pretty well-versed in how energy-inefficient a meat-biased diet can be. (Though, FWIW, I heard a very interesting story on NPR about a farmer/rancher who has an amazingly cunning and efficient system for nurturing/harvesting food and livestock at just the right times, in just the right mutually beneficial ways, as to have a near perpetual machine of energy-efficient food production.)
Regardless, the main point I'd like to make is that my entire "food review" was pretty much a humor gag (successful humor? you be the judge), and I wouldn't ascribe too much import or relevance to anything I wrote. I.e., I don't advocate that anyone eat a bunch of pork rinds.
smokeonit
August 27, 2008 at 4:56am
in the photo of steve an a coworker he looks still VERY thin...
i hope steve is getting better!!!
get well steve jobs...;-)
dallas2dc
August 26, 2008 at 9:58pm
One day you will grow up to be a real journalist who understands that getting the facts right lends credibility to your reporting. It's Cafe Macs, not Caffe Mac. All you had to do was look at the sign or your receipt.
JonPhillips
August 26, 2008 at 11:07pm
(1) If you think the story was a piece of serious reportage that demands incontestable "credibility" then you need to look up the word irony, and ask yourself if you have any sense of it.
(2) Before the story was posted, various Apple sources (i.e, run-of-the-mill employees) told me the place was named either Caffe Mac or Caffe Macs. Their recollections varied. All sources were quick to point out the first part of the name has two Fs, but there was no consensus on whether the second part of the name has an S. The takeaway here? The takeaway is that the exact spelling of the name is so damn irrelevant to the daily comings and goings of "real life," not even Apple employees could definitively recall the exact spelling. Nonetheless, if we're to take any of their words to heart, it would seem the cafeteria name doesn't has a single F, as you claim.
(3) I didn't pay for my lunch, thus no receipt. Good point about the sign, though. Next time I'll keep my eyes open.
(4) If you're going to come at me heavy, attacking my journalistic bonafides with such aggression, then please have the integrity to use your real name and not hide behind a handle. If, say, I knew you were a real journalist with a real resume, I'd still think you're an asshole, but at least I would be a bit embarrased for not fact-checking even this most ludicrous of stories (and for you, I think, my embarrasment would be mission accomplished). But if I were to find you had no journalistic legs on which to stand, and were simply one of the 20 million or so people who use the Internet to lash out at others behind the protection of anonymity, then my only reaction would be pure satisfaction -- satisfaction in knowing that I'm right in my belief that a broad cross-section of Internet "social-media" users are inherently fucked.
Ray Aguilera
August 27, 2008 at 9:28pm
Bravo Jon. Well-played. The internet kiddies would say "Jon FTW!"
jacquesass
August 27, 2008 at 8:06am
This comment is actually the best written piece within the whole story. Bravo, Jon!
(Allow me to heap praise on you from behind an anonymous handle.)
Michael Simon
August 26, 2008 at 10:53pm
Actually, it's Caffe Macs (with two f's and an 's' at the end).
JonPhillips
August 26, 2008 at 11:09pm
Thank you, Michael. A voice of reason. And much less irascible than I.
