Ferry Building San Francisco: The Best Food Market on the Waterfront

The Ferry Building Marketplace is San Francisco's best food destination — a 245-metre Edwardian terminal building on the Embarcadero waterfront, converted in 2003 from a transit hub to a food hall that houses the most concentrated collection of exceptional food producers in California. Unlike tourist-facing food halls that trade on their location, the Ferry Building's tenants are mostly small-batch producers and specialist retailers whose quality justifies the pilgrimages that chefs and serious eaters make from across the Bay Area.

The permanent market inside includes: Acme Bread Company (the Bay Area's most respected artisan bakery, their levain and pain de campagne are exemplary), Cowgirl Creamery (the Point Reyes creamery that essentially created the contemporary Northern California artisan cheese movement, their Mt Tam triple cream is the benchmark), Recchiuti Confections (the finest chocolate maker in San Francisco by most assessments), and the Blue Bottle Coffee counter that opened before Blue Bottle had multiple locations. The Slanted Door was here for years until COVID; its replacement and the surrounding restaurants in the building are variable but improving.

The Saturday Farmers Market (8am–2pm) outside on the Embarcadero is the event: 100+ local farms and food producers selling directly, the highest concentration of California produce quality in one place. The Saturday market has inspired chefs, food writers, and home cooks for 25 years and remains the best weekly food market in the city by a significant margin. The Tuesday and Thursday markets are smaller but excellent.

The Ferry Building connects to ferries across the Bay: the SF Bay Ferry to Oakland, Alameda, Vallejo, and Angel Island departs from here, making it a transit hub as well as a food destination. The view from the Embarcadero back to the Bay Bridge is one of San Francisco's best.