"It is a story playing out across Silicon Valley, where restaurateurs say that staying afloat is a daily battle with rising rents, high local fees and acute labor shortages. And tech behemoths like Apple, Facebook and Google are hiring away their best line cooks, dishwashers and servers with wages, benefits and perks that restaurant owners simply cannot match.<p>...<p>That may not be an issue for tech workers with access to free, farm-fresh cuisine in corporate cafeterias, but for everyone else here it is leaving a void between the takeout cuisine popping up around Palo Alto — picture bento boxes ordered on iPads at a counter — and $500 meals at high-end restaurants."<p>I consider the Bay Area as being affected by a Dutch disease phenomenon, meaning that all industries are crowded out by the one that has a comparative advantage, and that products and services that are not easily transportable undergo significant price and wage inflation.