Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market
Alice Waters buys her week here on a Saturday, the fruit and vegetables in season plus the cheeses and the breads, off more than a hundred sellers wrapped around the Ferry Building.21
Why go
Foodwise has run the market since 1993 as a California Certified Farmers Market, three days a week, year round.1 Acme Bread is on the seller list, which tells you the standard of the bread stalls. Waters will go further than the shopping: I think it's the best farmers market in the whole country,
which is her opinion and she says so.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever the market's own weekly picks page says is at peak, then eat it standing up. Thursday is the day to come hungry rather than with a bag: 10 to 15 stalls, built around street-food lunch.
- Avoid: planning a Saturday shop on a Tuesday. The operator's own count drops from 100-plus sellers to about 20.
What locals & experts say
- Alice Waters, The Relisher (Bay Area edition, 2026): "I go every Saturday and get everything I need for the week."
- Foodwise (the operator): the market
has served as a crucial link between urban dwellers and local farmers
since 1993.1 - MacKenzie Chung Fegan and Cesar Hernandez ranked the Ferry Building's own food and drink tenants in July 2026: twenty-nine restaurants, cafes, bakeries, bars and kiosks inside the building, with the market's stalls left out of it entirely.4 The building and the market are two different days out at one address.
Good to know
- Timing: Saturday from early morning until early afternoon; Tuesday and Thursday start two hours later and finish at the same time. Year round.1
- The lineup changes weekly. The roster varies week to week and by season, and Foodwise's weekly e-letter and its info booth carry who is actually in.3
- Getting there: the Embarcadero at the foot of Market Street, on top of the Embarcadero Muni and BART stations.
Verdict
must-visit — Alice Waters shops here every Saturday for the week's food and calls it the best farmers market in the country, which from the person who built American restaurant sourcing around farmers markets is the strongest possible pick. Foodwise has run it since 1993 as a California Certified Farmers Market, and the Saturday version puts more than a hundred sellers around the Ferry Building from early morning. Tuesday and Thursday are different animals, about twenty stalls and ten to fifteen, the Thursday one built around street-food lunch. For anybody cooking in this city, or eating breakfast standing up, it is the first stop and not an afternoon's diversion.