Anyone wishing to enter a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy needs only to try starting a small business in San Francisco. Traversing the labyrinth of required permits will routinely necessitate submitting the forms and fulfilling the regulations of as many as a dozen departments and agencies.

The owner of Rose Pistola, Terzo and Rose’s Café in San Francisco is preparing for the Meals on Wheels Star Chefs & Vintners Gala on Sunday. Thomas, 41, who recently became the vice president of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, joined the restaurant business seven years ago after working in Silicon Valley.

The 734 San Francisco businesses that complied with the controversial HealthySF law’s April 30 deadline to send in the first health-insurance payments for 12,900 employees cannot be blamed if they feel cheated by City Hall. They are being penalized for obeying the law and paying on time.

Local corporations and businesses that fail to comply with a newly adopted law requiring them to pay a mandated amount of money toward the health insurance of their employees will not be held accountable unless someone complains or until a required compliance report is filed with The City at the end of the year.

Restaurant patrons in the city will no longer see glasses of water automatically appear on their tables while they study the menu.

Serving up a top-selling restaurant in The City is like following in the footsteps of Rice-A-Roni: you have to get tourists and locals believing it’s a San Francisco treat, according to local eatery owners.

The city requirement that employers spend money on health care for employees goes before a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel today as local businesses go into a holding pattern before they commit funds to The City’s universal health care program.