Great question. The differences are subtle yet definitely worth noting.
To users, $20 worth of food doesn't tell them anything about what they're actually going to buy when they arrive at the venue, whereas $1 for a $2 cup of coffee specifies exactly what they'll get. You might also only spend $18.50 of your $20 credit and can't find something worth ~$1.50 to buy, which can leave a bad aftertaste for some people.
Also, this allows merchants to prepare much more effectively by overstocking on the items being featured. Or they could discount an already overstocked item just to get rid of it.
All in all, people visit restaurants for specific (signature) dishes, not for the restaurants themselves, so it all fits together.
I agree with what iqster said. If you do decide to come to the Bay Area, definitely familiarize yourself with the state of tech here first (and network like hell!) and look for a job you love doing. Being a code monkey is only fun if the project is fun. Good luck and stay strong!
guynamedloren, with your passion and experience, I can see the following happening:
Day 1: Move to Bay Area,
Day 2: Land job,
Day 3: Chase dreams
Just show employers what you've done and what you want to do. They'll understand if it doesn't coincide with your degree, and frankly, I don't think they'll care about it.
I'm quite fond of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's quote, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
(And my mistake, didn't see doron's earlier post.)
I was at a Zynga Hackathon at Berkeley a year ago. I suppose it's true a good amount of networking goes on, but that didn't bother me too much. I was really there just to hack something together overnight, and my team actually moved to a separate location so we wouldn't be disturbed. So overall it was a pretty good experience despite what other teams were doing. Hope you also feel this way in the future!
Assuming no ETs exist within our 200ly bubble, if ETs somehow discovered our signal and made contact, our level of knowledge would jump a few centuries at least.