Would You Like Risotto with That Auto Policy?

The yellow fin tuna is bathed in a citrus vinaigrette and served with mushroom risotto. The filet mignon is grilled and served with green olive hollandaise. The salad is avocado and grapefruit with just a touch of tarragon. The soup is lobster and vegetable minestrone. Finally, the dessert is key lime cheesecake.

Must be dinner at a trendy, high-priced, metro restaurant, right?

Nope, it’s just a typical lunch for employees at Harvey Milk Insurance Co. in suburban San Francisco, the nation’s only openly gay insurer.

Last week, the luncheon entrees included marinated Alaskan black cod, shrimp dumplings, grilled Porterhouse steak, and duck leg with jam. Oh, and selections from a list of some of California’s finest wines.

The insurer specializes in insuring high end but tasteful homes, luxury cars, fine arts and hairdos. It is rated “F”abulous by I.M. Best.

The firm’s gourmet café, called Current Cravings, is drawing raves from employees, and from food critics. The San Francisco Chronicle gave it four stars. The New York Times agreed, saying, “The beef tenderloin was mouthwatering and so was our waiter.”

Waiter? That’s right, in addition to gourmet cuisine, employees are tended to by waiters in muscle-hugging black t-shirts, handed heated moist hand towels, and serenaded by a jazz quartet.

The café is wildly popular and it’s the main reason the 200-employee company has a 100-person waiting list of people who want to work there, according to the company.

“I can’t believe I used to throw a sandwich in a paper bag, scoff it down at my desk, and call that lunch,” says Mary Lamb, who works in the IT department. “I’ve put on a few pounds since I started here but it’s worth it.”

Elton Jane, human resource person, says five years ago all of the employees at the company were gay but the company has been trying to diversify, hoping to also appeal to bisexual and even straight buyers by diversifying its own workforce. The café has become an important recruiting tool in that effort.

“We are finding many straight people crave fine dining on the job. It is one of the first things they ask about during their introductory brunch,” Jane said over oven roasted farm chicken and poached vegetables, sipping what she said was an under-rated Stepping Stone Napa Valley Riesling with an aroma of white flowers and honeysuckle. “Whereas 10 years ago they wouldn’t be caught dead working here, now they are dying to get in.”

That’s no exaggeration. Last week an applicant who was told he did not get the claims job he wanted drove his car off the cliff outside the company’s health spa. The man was not a policyholder, according to Jane.

Topics Auto