Every weekday at Twitter鈥檚 New York offices, top chefs prepare a luxurious breakfast and lunch for the company鈥檚 350 employees, using the highest-quality local ingredients. So please, says Amelia Ekus 鈥07, who manages the tech giant鈥檚 dining service, don鈥檛 call this a cafeteria. 鈥淚 hate the word,鈥 she recently told the online magazine Eater. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 let anyone say it鈥攊t鈥檚 banned from the lexicon here.鈥
Hired to run Twitter鈥檚, um, caf茅 last year, Ekus is the daughter of a cookbook agent who grew up surrounded by famous chefs. When Emeril Lagasse or Julia Child would come by, she would arrange the napkins, or set out a bouquet. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 where my love for the front of the house and hospitality comes from,鈥 she explained.
After studying 鈥渇ood activism,鈥 her self-designed major, at NYU鈥檚 Gallitin School, Ekus worked in New York restaurants before being recruited by food service management company Guckenheimer, which runs Twitter鈥檚 caf茅. Twitter, like many big tech firms, offers high-end meals as an employee perk. The company鈥檚 budget, she notes, allows her to effect positive change in the food chain. 鈥淲e have an initiative to source as much as possible from within 100 miles of the caf茅,鈥 she says. 鈥淲e also work with many minority-owned and small businesses and use our buying power and relationships to help them grow their businesses.鈥
To build excitement among Twitter鈥檚 employees (or Tweeps, as she calls them), Ekus tweets a photo of the day鈥檚 offerings each morning. It鈥檚 always something new: In their first year, her chefs did not repeat a single dish.
Photo Credit: Jenny G. Zhang