What day is the Ferry Building farmers market?

Saturday is the largest and most complete session, with smaller markets running on select weekdays as well. Check the current posted schedule before planning around a specific day, since it can shift. The interior food hall, separate from the outdoor market, is open daily.

Was the Ferry Building always a food market?

No — it opened in 1898 as San Francisco's main passenger ferry terminal, at one point handling around 50,000 commuters a day before the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges made most ferry routes unnecessary. It was restored and reopened as a food marketplace in 2003, after decades of decline that included an elevated freeway blocking it from the waterfront until the freeway's demolition in the 1990s.

Which direction should I walk the Embarcadero from the Ferry Building?

North toward Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf is the better sequence — it's a twenty-five to thirty-five minute walk that builds toward the busier tourist area rather than starting there, so you don't end your walk rushing past the calmer, nicer stretch near the Ferry Building itself.

Is the Ferry Building Marketplace expensive?

It skews toward the higher end for food and produce, in line with its specialty sourcing and prime waterfront location, though it's comparable to other serious food halls rather than exceptionally overpriced. Cheaper options exist elsewhere in the city if budget is the main concern.

San Francisco, United States

The Ferry Building is a market first and a ferry terminal second now

Come Saturday morning for the full farmers market, and walk the waterfront north toward the Wharf afterward rather than the other way around.

A restored 1898 transit terminal turned gourmet food hall, with the city's best farmers market running three mornings a week

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Before either of San Francisco's bridges existed, the Ferry Building was the single busiest transit hub on the West Coast — as many as 50,000 commuters a day passed through it at its peak in the early twentieth century, arriving by boat from Oakland, Berkeley, Marin and beyond to reach the only city not connected to the rest of the Bay Area by road. Completed in 1898 with a clock tower modeled partly on the bell tower of Seville Cathedral in Spain and visible from well out in the bay, it was for decades the literal gateway to San Francisco, the first and last thing most Bay Area residents saw of the city on any given day.

The Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, both opened in 1936 and 1937, made that role largely obsolete within a generation — commuters could suddenly drive straight into the city, and ferry traffic collapsed. The building spent the following decades in slow decline, at one point marred by an elevated freeway (the Embarcadero Freeway) built directly in front of it that blocked the waterfront view entirely, until the freeway was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and ultimately torn down, reopening the Embarcadero as a proper waterfront boulevard for the first time in decades.

The building itself was restored and reopened in 2003 as a marketplace: its long central nave, lined with permanent food and craft vendors, flanked on the bay side by a plaza that hosts a serious, chef-and-farmer-driven farmers market three days a week. It's simultaneously a genuinely excellent food destination, a still-functioning ferry terminal with real commuter and tourist routes, and one of the best-preserved pieces of San Francisco's pre-bridge history, and most visitors only ever experience the first of those three.

What it used to beFrom the West Coast's busiest transit hub to a freeway's shadow to a market

At its peak in the years just after 1900, the Ferry Building handled more daily passenger traffic than almost any other transit terminal in the world outside of a handful of European stations, with dozens of ferry lines connecting San Francisco to every part of the Bay Area that lacked a bridge — because there were no bridges yet. The 245-foot clock tower was designed to be visible from far out on the water, a functional landmark as much as a decorative one, guiding ferries in through fog long before radar existed.

The opening of the Bay Bridge in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 gutted ferry ridership almost overnight, and the building drifted into decades of reduced use and deferred maintenance. The low point, architecturally, came with the construction of the double-decker Embarcadero Freeway in the 1950s, which ran directly along the waterfront in front of the building and cut it off visually and physically from the bay it was built to serve — for close to forty years, the Ferry Building sat in the literal shadow of an elevated highway.

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake structurally damaged the freeway badly enough that the city, after years of debate, opted to demolish it rather than repair it — a decision that transformed the entire waterfront and is now widely credited as one of the best urban planning outcomes San Francisco produced from a disaster. The Ferry Building itself underwent a major restoration completed in 2003, converting its long unused central nave into the market hall you walk through today while preserving the original steel-trussed skylight roof and the clock tower.

The main eventThe farmers market versus the daily stalls

The Ferry Building has two food identities that visitors frequently conflate. Inside the building, permanent stalls sell prepared food, coffee, cheese, oysters and specialty goods every day the building is open. Outside, on the plaza facing the bay and along Washington Street behind the building, a genuine farmers market runs on a set weekly schedule, bringing in Northern California farms, ranches and small producers for a market that's meaningfully more serious than a typical city farmers market — it's long been a place where working chefs from the city's restaurants do their own sourcing, not just a tourist photo opportunity dressed up as agriculture.

The difference matters for planning. If you show up on a day without the outdoor market running, you'll still find an excellent food hall, but you'll miss the produce stands, the seasonal fruit tastings, the specialty growers who only show up on market days, and the noticeably livelier atmosphere the full market brings. Saturday is the flagship day, bigger and more complete than the smaller weekday sessions, and it's worth structuring a visit around it if your schedule allows rather than treating the market as a bonus if you happen to be walking by.

Getting there reasonably early on a market day — before the late-morning crowds peak — gets you first pick of anything that sells out, like specific fruit varieties or bakery items in limited daily batches, and makes it easier to actually talk to the farmers and producers running the stands rather than just filing past them.

Every day of the weekWhat's worth eating inside, any day

The building's interior nave holds a rotating but generally stable cast of specialty food vendors that don't depend on the outdoor market schedule at all. An oyster and seafood counter near the bay-facing end is a reliable spot for a dozen oysters and a glass of something cold, best enjoyed at one of the outdoor tables facing the water rather than taken away. A cheese counter stocked with a genuinely deep selection of both California and imported cheeses is worth a stop even if you're not planning to buy — the staff are usually happy to talk through what's good that week. Several small-batch coffee roasters operate counters inside, reflecting San Francisco's broader reputation as a serious coffee city, and it's a reasonable spot to sit with a cup and watch the room rather than rushing straight back outside.

Bakeries, a well-regarded mushroom and specialty produce stall, a dedicated olive oil and vinegar tasting counter, and a handful of sit-down restaurants along the bay-facing side round out the interior. The honest caveat is that specific vendors turn over now and then, as they do in any long-running market, so treat any particular name as provisional — the format and quality bar have stayed consistent for two decades even as individual stalls have changed.

Prices across the building skew toward the higher end for what you're getting, reflecting both the specialty sourcing and the prime waterfront real estate; it's not the cheapest lunch in the city, but it's priced in line with what a serious food hall built on this level of curation generally costs anywhere.

Beyond the building itselfThe Embarcadero walk and the ferries that still run

The Ferry Building still functions as an active ferry terminal, and it's easy to forget that while browsing the food stalls. Regular passenger ferries run from the building's docks to Sausalito and Larkspur in Marin County and to Oakland and Alameda across the bay — the Sausalito run in particular is a genuinely pleasant, reasonably priced alternative to the far more crowded and touristed cable-car-and-bridge-walk route to the same town, and it gives you a clean water-level view of the city skyline and the Bay Bridge on the way out.

Outside the building, the Embarcadero promenade runs both directions along the waterfront, and the better direction to walk from here is north, toward Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf — a roughly twenty-five to thirty-five minute walk that passes the piers, occasional public art, and views out toward Alcatraz and the Bay Bridge, arriving at the Wharf's busier tourist zone at the end rather than starting there. Doing it in the other order — starting crowded and finishing at the comparatively calmer Ferry Building plaza — is a noticeably worse sequence for pacing an afternoon, since you end up leaving the nicer, calmer spot for last only in theory, when in practice most people are tired and skip it.

The plaza directly in front of the building, with views across the bay, is also simply a good place to sit for ten minutes with a coffee or a snack from inside — an underused option given how much of the visit tends to happen indoors among the stalls.

Practical info

Hours: The marketplace interior is generally open daily, roughly 10am to 6 or 7pm, with some restaurants open later. The outdoor farmers market runs on a set weekly schedule — a large Saturday market plus smaller weekday sessions — with exact days and hours worth confirming against the current posted schedule since they occasionally shift.
Tickets: Free to enter and browse; you only pay for what you eat or buy. Ferries departing from the building's dock (to Sausalito, Larkspur, Oakland or Alameda) are separately ticketed through the ferry operator, with fares varying by route and typically cheaper than comparable tourist-boat tours.
Getting there: The Ferry Building sits at the foot of Market Street on the Embarcadero, an easy walk from the Financial District and reachable by BART/Muni Metro at Embarcadero station, the F-line historic streetcar, or several Muni bus routes running along the waterfront. It's roughly a fifteen-minute walk from Union Square.
Good to know: The Saturday farmers market draws large crowds, especially late morning through early afternoon — arriving earlier makes both shopping and simply walking through considerably easier. Prices for food and produce inside skew higher than average, consistent with the specialty sourcing and prime location. The building is fully accessible, with level access throughout the market hall.

Before you goCommon questions

What day is the Ferry Building farmers market?: Saturday is the largest and most complete session, with smaller markets running on select weekdays as well. Check the current posted schedule before planning around a specific day, since it can shift. The interior food hall, separate from the outdoor market, is open daily.
Was the Ferry Building always a food market?: No — it opened in 1898 as San Francisco's main passenger ferry terminal, at one point handling around 50,000 commuters a day before the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges made most ferry routes unnecessary. It was restored and reopened as a food marketplace in 2003, after decades of decline that included an elevated freeway blocking it from the waterfront until the freeway's demolition in the 1990s.
Can you still take a ferry from the Ferry Building?: Yes, it's an active terminal with regular passenger ferries to Sausalito and Larkspur in Marin County and to Oakland and Alameda across the bay. The Sausalito ferry is a popular, less crowded alternative to visiting via the Golden Gate Bridge.
Which direction should I walk the Embarcadero from the Ferry Building?: North toward Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf is the better sequence — it's a twenty-five to thirty-five minute walk that builds toward the busier tourist area rather than starting there, so you don't end your walk rushing past the calmer, nicer stretch near the Ferry Building itself.
Is the Ferry Building Marketplace expensive?: It skews toward the higher end for food and produce, in line with its specialty sourcing and prime waterfront location, though it's comparable to other serious food halls rather than exceptionally overpriced. Cheaper options exist elsewhere in the city if budget is the main concern.

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