The Embarcadero
san francisco, ca

The Embarcadero street in San Francisco has been turned into a parkway and wide pleasant sidewalk that provides a great way to walk, bike, or skate along the eastern shoreline of the City. There is now a wide variety of renovated piers, restaurants, parks, and nearby attractions to enjoy as you go. See some of the best ones, listed from north to south, below.

Fisherman's Wharf

Here you have Pier 39, the 3rd most visited tourist attraction in America, plus the rest of Fisherman's Wharf. From Pier 39 you can walk, bicycle, or skate south on the Embarcadero; or, take a historic streetcar on SF Muni's F-Line which follows Embarcadero before eventually turning west on Market St.

Levi Straus area

Levi's Plaza Park, 1270 Battery St, and Levi Strauss Headquarters, 1155 Battery St, are a nice place to visit. On weekends they are very quiet. Two nearby restaurants we enjoy are the outdoor patio at Il Fornaio, 1265 Battery St., and the nifty looking Fog City Diner, 1300 Battery St.

This is also a good place to start a climb up one of the two famous stairways to the top of Telegraph Hill. The Filbert Steps begin at the west end of Filbert and the Greenwich steps begin at the west end of Greenwich, both at the bottom of Telegraph Hill's steep side.

Broadway Ave

When walking south on Embarcadero we usually leave the sidewalk near Broadway Ave to continue our walk in an out of the various piers. Many have been renovated to make them quite pleasant for pedestrians.

You can easily get to North Beach from Embarcadero/Broadway by walking four blocks west to Broadway/Columbus.

Market Street

Embarcadero Center is a massive office-shopping-residential complex designed by architect John C. Portman Jr. It covers eight city blocks and more than 14,000 people work there daily. The complex includes five tall office towers, two hotels, and retail space on three interconnected levels with more than 120 shops and restaurants. These shops are busy week days, when office workers are there, but most are closed or very quiet on weekends. Two large outdoor plazas with some shopping, Embarcadero Plaza and Justin Herman Plaza, also act as parks along The Embarcadero Street.

The 4 star Hyatt-Regency Hotel within Embarcadero Center has a beautiful 17 story atrium well worth visiting. This is a good place to start your tour of Embarcadero Center.

Before the two San Francisco bridges were completed (1930s) the Ferry Building, at Embarcadero/Market St, was the 2nd busiest transit terminal in the world. It still has some ferry service but mainly houses a variety of upscale food shopping booths, restaurants, and offices. You can get a cup of excellent coffee at Blue Bottle Coffee, find gourmet snacks, or eat a full sit-down meal at places such as the Slanted Door or Hog Island Oyster Co.

Be forewarned, however. Almost everything at the Ferry Building is expensive. This includes the well known Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market, held Tuesdays and Saturdays, which often attracts thousands of visitors.

Under Market St nearby, between Spear St & Beale St, is Embarcadero Station. This is the biggest BART and muni metro line transit terminal in San Francisco. From here you can easily access most of the SF Bay area via public transportation.

Just south of the Hyatt at 77 Steuart St is a small non-profit San Francisco Railway Museum & Gift Shop. It features the history of transit vehicles such as streetcars (also know as trams or trolleys), cable cars, & trolley coaches. Right outside the front door you can board a historic streetcar for a ride down Market St to Castro St or north up The Embarcadero to Fisherman's Wharf.

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

As you continue south on The Embarcadero under the Bay Bridge you will enjoy some nice San Francisco Bay views looking towards Oakland and Alameda. Along the way are various parks, piers, and restaurants to enjoy.

For example, at the corner of Embarcadero/Brannan St is the Delancey Street Restaurant. It has a nice outdoor patio with view and a large inside dining room. Behind it is Crossroads Cafe, 699 Delancey St, a coffee shop with well priced home-made food and private outdoor patio. These restaurants are both part of a training school for the nation's biggest, best, self-supporting, self-help organization for assisting ex-convicts, drug abusers and others in serious trouble with no place else to go. Here they can obtain the attitudes and training necessary to start a decent life. Delancy Street is an impressive effort and well worth supporting, at the least by enjoying their services.

City Kayak, Pier 40, Embarcadero/Townsend, rents kayaks from a van. Though service can be sporadic it's a nice beginner/intermediate kayak trip to McCovey Cove behind the AT&T Ball Park.

SF Giants AT&T Ball Park

Walking around baseball park at the southern end of The Embarcadero is fun. See McCovey Cove where Barry Bonds hit 35 home runs that "splashed" into the Bay.

If there is a game you can watch it for free through the fence from behind right field. Better yet go inside and enjoy baseball at one of the most sensational ball parks in the world; we like the food and the upper deck Bay view. On days where there is no day game behind-the-scene public tours are available.

Two blocks southeast is the SF Caltrain Station, 4th St/King St. From here you can take a train south to the SF Peninsula, catch the N Judah Metro line back up to Embarcadero/Market, or hop on one many bus lines going all over the city.

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Walking The Embarcadero, San Francisco, is something tourists will likely never fully see or may never know about. However, local residents love it as an excellent way to get their exercise while experiencing San Francisco's marvelous Bay setting.


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