Cowgirl Creamery, an original Ferry Building tenant, to close
Cowgirl Creamery is closing its famous cheese shop and Sidekick Cafe at the San Francisco Ferry Building on April 10 after 18 years in business — a blow for the food hall that some critics said was already losing its status as a culinary destination even before the pandemic.
Cowgirl, one of the Ferry Building’s lastremaining original tenants, attributed the closure to the pandemic. It will be the eighth vacancy in the famed food hall, which usually has just one or two empty spaces.
Cowgirl exemplified everything the Ferry Building marketplace is supposed to be about: artisanal, locally made food that had rightfully earned national acclaim. The closure doesn’t impact the creamery’s production: Cowgirl will continue to make cheese, selling in stores nationwide and at its Point Reyes Station location.
Amanda Parker, managing director of Cowgirl, said the Ferry Building was always a
challenging place to operate a business because of the unusually busy, chaotic environment. But foot traffic came to a grinding halt last March when shelterinplace orders first took effect, and it never fully came back, she said.
“No ferry traffic, no locals except on farmers’ market days, no tourists,” she said. “We tried really hard to make it work and ultimately it’s just not an operation we could sustain any longer.”
Cowgirl began curbside pickup, created grabandgo menu items, added wine and beer, and attempted other changes to entice locals to come to the Ferry Building shop, but nothing worked.
Parker held on to hope last year that the situation would improve — but then came fall’s wildfires and a stayathome order during the typically busy winter holiday season. Parker talked it over with Peggy Smith and Sue Conley, the founders who recently announced their retirement, and they all agreed it was time to shut down the two Ferry Building stalls to ensure the longevity of the rest of the company.
“We looked ahead at the next couple of months, and we all feel optimism about positive change we’re seeing currently,” Parker said. “But unfortunately, I think that the fate of the Ferry Building and downtown San Francisco as a climate and a hub for business and residents, it’s still very uncertain.”
With office workers staying home, downtown has looked empty throughout the pandemic — and now, some major employers like Salesforce are allowing remote or flexible schedules for most employees indefinitely. The state of tourism also looks grim. James Bermingham, board
“No ferry traffic, no locals except on farmers’ market days, no tourists ... ultimately, it’s just not an operation we could sustain any longer.” Amanda Parker, Cowgirl Creamery managing director
chair of Visit California, said during an industry forum last month that visitor spending likely won’t return to 2019 levels until 2024.
Drew Gordon, executive vice president of Ferry Building landlord Hudson Pacific Properties, said the marketplace’s management is in lease negotiations with potential tenants for vacant storefronts.
“While we will miss having Cowgirl Creamery’s shop at the Ferry Building, we are confident that we will be able to fill the space with a new and local independent merchant that will add to the Ferry Building Marketplace’s beloved, farmdriven, diverse concepts,” he said by email.
Over the past year, the Ferry Building has brought on three popups to temporarily fill spaces, as well as four new tenants, including Carmel Honey Co., Cholita Linda and the Epicurean Trader. The latter is a new specialty market that will start selling Cowgirl’s cheeses, ensuring the creamery continues to have a presence in the building.
Other longtime tenants, such as McEvoy Ranch and San Francisco Fish Co., departed quietly during the pandemic. Before last March, the Ferry Building lost several other notable tenants, including MarketBar, Mijita and Brown Sugar Kitchen. Some previous tenants, such as Vive La Tarte, said the rents were too high to make a small business work and feared the market would become home to larger corporations.
While Gordon agreed that the loss of daytime foot traffic has been difficult for the food hall’s vendors, he said he thinks more people are streaming through the building as COVID19 cases decline.
“On several recent Saturdays, numbers have been approaching prepandemic levels,” he said, “and we expect this trend to continue as more people get vaccinated.”