The Ferry Building is San Francisco's great food hall, housed in a beautifully restored 1898 Beaux-Arts terminal with a 245-foot clock tower modeled on the Giralda in Seville. The ground floor is lined with about fifty artisan food vendors -- Cowgirl Creamery cheeses, Acme bread, Blue Bottle coffee, Hog Island oysters shucked to order, and much more.
The outdoor farmers market on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays is one of the best in California, drawing chefs and food lovers from across the Bay Area. The building was once the second-busiest transit terminal in the world, after Charing Cross. It fell into disuse after the Bay Bridge opened but was magnificently restored in 2003 after the 1989 earthquake led to the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway that had blocked it from view for decades.