Ferry Building flurry fills structure close to capacity

In a flurry of retail leasing activity that defies tales of San Francisco’s downtown doldrums, five new businesses have opened or announced new leases in The City’s Ferry Building Marketplace just since June, filling the iconic building almost to capacity.

The latest tenant to plant a stake in the elegant transit center’s hive of high-end eateries and shops is Bernal Cutlery. The Mission District purveyor of domestic and international knives and other cookware announced Tuesday it was opening an outpost in the structure, which is located on The Embarcadero at the northeast end of Market Street.

"We have always felt we could do well at the Ferry Building, as it focuses so much on food and small business,” said Josh Donald, a co-owner of Bernal Cutlery. “We see much more energy at the Ferry Building now than several years ago when we first started checking out a space there.”

The Ferry Building, where a mocha espresso coffee-to-go can cost $8, offers a mix of more than 40 merchants selling artisanal foods and consumer goods. Its retail space downstairs is now more than 95% leased, while its extensive office space upstairs is completely taken, according to a building manager.

The high occupancy is particularly notable given that the office- and retail-vacancy rates in San Francisco both set record highs in the second quarter of the year. Citywide office vacancies hit 36.8% and retail vacancies reached 7.7% citywide and 21.7% in Union Square.

Bernal Cutlery — which will replace The Gardener — made its announcement less than a week after Laurence Jossel — owner and chef at the restaurant Nopa in Alamo Square — said that in 2025 his team would open a new joint restaurant and seafood market in the Ferry Building.

A month before that, the operators of the Michelin-starred Sorrel restaurant in Pacific Heights disclosed that they had signed a 15-year lease for the space that previously housed the Slanted Door. That Vietnamese restaurant closed in 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened, with its owner announcing a permanent closing in May.

Sorrel’s news, in turn, came immediately after Ocean Malasada began serving up sugar-dusted, Hawaiian-inspired donuts in the Ferry Building.

And in June, the restaurant Lunette began serving its Cambodian cuisine.

“We are continuing to bring in the best and cultivating a sense of community and cohesiveness in our offerings,” said Jane Connors, general manager with Hudson Pacific Properties, which operates the building. “One of the things I'm most proud of is that we are maintaining the genuineness of the food community in San Francisco.”

The new Nopa Fish outpost will offer counter service, with dishes like fish sandwiches, fish and chips and fish tacos, Jossel said. In addition, customers will be able to buy seafood provided by Water2Table, a local company that advertises sustainably caught fish.

“We're super excited about coming to the Ferry Building,” Jossel said as he picked out vegetables for his restaurant at one of the thrice-weekly farmers markets staged in front of the structure by the nonprofit Foodwise, a building tenant.

Jossel said the new Nopa Fish outlet “is not about filling a gap; it’s about enhancing an already thriving community.” His operation will occupy space that was formerly home to the San Francisco Fish Company, which closed in 2020 and which has been used for pop-ups, including for Chinatown merchants and the nonprofit North Beach Citizens.

Chef Alex Hong, Sorrel’s owner, promised to deliver a full-service restaurant in the 8,200 square-foot space on the north bayside corner of the Ferry Building that the Slanted Door formerly occupied.

"We chose to open up a restaurant in the Ferry Building for a variety of reasons. Number one is the building itself, its historic and iconic location in San Francisco is filled with a rich history and cultural significance,” Hong said.

“The building is known for its stunning waterfront views and heavy foot traffic,” he said. “It's a hub for both locals and tourists, making it an ideal spot for a restaurant to attract a diverse clientele.”

The recent rush of leasing means that all but 3,200 square feet of the Ferry Building’s 71,000 square feet of downstairs retail space is occupied, according to Hudson Pacific.

All 195,000 square feet of office space on the building’s second and third floors, which has had little vacancy, is also occupied, which creates a built-in customer base.

One upstairs tenant is Shack 15, a buzzy social club opened in 2020 that caters to the tech-entrepreneur scene. It offers regular events, including culinary ones, as well as a cafe and bar, lounges and extensive meeting facilities.

The Ferry Building’s operators also try to keep things hopping with a variety of attractions, including live music, yoga classes, art exhibits and weekly mahjong sessions with tutors on hand for the uninitiated.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, ferry ridership to and from the Ferry Building plunged drastically, and though it has rebounded to a large degree, it still has not fully recovered.

The Ferry Building itself stayed open throughout, as did a few businesses, including the Acme Bread Company, El Porteno, Village Market and the farmers market.

“One of the things we were really proud of is staying consistently open and providing nourishment. And I think it was communal nourishment,” Connors said.

Multiple businesses did leave, like the Golden Gate Meat Co. and the bakery Vive La Tarte.

New entrants, however, including Carmel Honey Co., Cholita Linda and the Epicurean Trader, were able to open and are still operating.

Red Bay Coffee in April 2021 took over space Peet’s Coffee vacated in 2020. The Grande Crêperie in November 2021 took over space formerly occupied by Frog Hollow Farm, which also closed in 2020.

Reems, with a menu inspired by "Arab street food," in Nov. 2022 took over space previously used by Cowgirl Creamery, which closed in April 2021.

Señor Sisig opened a Filipino fusion food restaurant in summer of 2022.

The latest new tenants will thus join a vibrant scene.

Lian Stemler has been a retail associate and barista at Dandelion Chocolate’s outpost in the building for the last month. She regularly serves tourists and said she has found the Dandelion’s Ferry Building location livelier than her employer’s other location on Fillmore Street, particularly on weekends and when the San Francisco Giants have a game.

“I really like teaching and talking to people about chocolate,” Stemler said of the products from Dandelion, a bean-to-bar maker of chocolate products in the Mission District. “I love giving samples. And people love, love everything.”

Juan Carlos “J.C.” Gonzalez, a manager for Green Thumb Farms from San Juan Bautista who works at the farmers markets, said business at the Ferry Building was good, even if it does vary by day and season and get slow in winter.

“It's a great place to be because I feel that people are willing to pay the price of the product,” Gonzalez said.