Does the Ferry Building still reflect the Bay Area’s food culture?

The Ferry Building is seen under a large, dark cloud Saturday, March 3, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif. The Ferry Building is seen under a large, dark cloud Saturday, March 3, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Jessica Christian, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Jessica Christian, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Does the Ferry Building still reflect the Bay Area’s food culture? 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

The Ferry Building is, in many ways, the center of the Bay Area food world. A particularly fervent cheerleader could perhaps even make the case that it is the center of the American food world.

Fifteen years ago, it changed the waterfront when it was reconceived as a cathedral to California cuisine, the length of two football fields, framed by five-story skylights. It was a culinary wonderland, designed to reflect — and showcase — the food culture of the Bay Area and provide a previously unavailable platform for the region’s famous artisans and farmers.

Since then, however, the American food industry has undergone a dramatic transformation, a shift clearly seen in the organic produce at Walmart or the locally made bagels at Whole Foods. The sea change has impacted the Ferry Building, too, as many artisans and small businesses have slowly disappeared from its majestic naves, replaced by a new generation of food companies with different origin stories and corporate outlooks.

The Ferry Building remains the Bay Area’s global showcase, as popular as ever with locals and tourists. So, as the next evolution of the city’s top culinary destination takes shape amid a changing food scene, it’s worth considering: Does the Ferry Building still reflect the Bay Area?

Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle Hundreds make their way through shops inside the Ferry Building...

Criticism — especially surrounding the topics of money and righteousness — is nothing new for the Ferry Building. For years, it has weathered controversy, both valid and invalid, about costs for consumers and vendors, factors that become inextricably tied to the nature of businesses that can (or should) populate its soaring halls.

On the Ferry Building website, the first lines of the mission statement from Blackstone’s Equity Office Properties, which leases the building from the Port of San Francisco, read as such:

“We are very committed to the artisan food community and to fostering the values of that community here at the Ferry Building. We envision the Ferry Building Marketplace as a vibrant gathering of local farmers, artisan producers, and independently owned and operated food businesses and the customers they serve.”

Photo: Jessica Christian, The Chronicle The Ferry Building, as seen from the south.

The Ferry Building, built in 1898, reopened in March 2003 after a $90 million restoration. At the time, The Chronicle’s GraceAnn Walden wrote that the Ferry Building “may be the most important building in San Francisco, and like (New York’s) Grand Central, it is a link to our past and our future.”

The tenant lineup of the Ferry Building has steadily evolved along the way, often voiced with the pain of a thousand stinging nettles. The original vision saw the hall as a brick-and-mortar interpretation of a farmers’ market: a permanent home for itinerant artisans, growers and producers.

Yet even before the original tenants signed on, there was worry about how the Ferry Building would marry the food world with the big-business world. Sue Conley of Cowgirl Creamery was one of the first elite Bay Area producers to sign onto the project. A 2003 article in The Chronicle reported that Conley was “sold when she realized the project would be fundamentally different than ‘a collection of 20 gourmet food shops.’”

About five years in, faces began to change as the original round of leases came up for renewal. Several first-generation tenants were forced to leave, including Mistral Rotisserie Provencale, Tsar Nicolai, Culinaire, LuLu Petite and Molinari spinoff Mastrelli’s.

The exodus caused Betty Marcon of Mistral to pen a screed against Ferry Building management in January 2009: “Big private equity firms like Blackstone, who owns Equity Office Properties, are not in the business to keep communities thriving,” she wrote on Chowhound. “They are in the business of destruction for the sake of profit.”

Despite Macron’s outcry, the second generation at the Ferry Building saw a profound focus on the more celebrated darlings of the local food world: Well-regarded chefs Daniel Patterson and Lauren Kiino opened Il Cane Rosso, Blue Bottle moved inside from its market stand, and two Bay Area restaurant staples — Heath Ceramics and Rancho Gordo — got their first city outposts.

To provide more accessible entry points, the Ferry Building added kiosks in various nooks, sparking feel-good stories like Joseph Ahearne’s El Porteño Empanadas, Gary Alfieri’s G. L. Alfieri Fruits & Nuts and the women-owned businesses of La Cocina.

As the Ferry Building’s success grew, so too did many of its vendors. But in the food world, success is a double-edged sword. What happens when those artisanal producers, catapulted by a combination of exposure and great product, become million-dollar companies, or even part of global conglomerates? What happens when they become chains?

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, The Chronicle People pose for a photograph after getting a coffee outside of the...

Gott’s Roadside, formerly known as Taylor’s Refresher, has ridden its famous burgers to become a veritable Bay Area chain since opening in the Ferry Building. You can now find additional Gott’s outposts in Napa, Palo Alto, Walnut Creek, Marin and even Gate A-10 at the SFO International Terminal.

Since 2016, Cowgirl Creamery has been owned by Emmi AG, the Swiss global dairy giant that posted sales of $3.5 billion last year.

Since 2012, the parent company of another original tenant, Peet’s Coffee, has been a European conglomerate named JAB Holding Company, which bought Peet’s for $975 million. The company also owns Keurig and Krispy Kreme.

In September 2017, Nestle paid “up to $500 million” to acquire a majority stake of Blue Bottle, long a presence both inside and outside the Ferry Building, putting the coffee company at a valuation of roughly $700 million. Nestle is a company that has been linked to countless ethical scandals and boycotts.

To maintain a foothold at the Ferry Building requires deep pockets, and as long as there are tenants willing to pay, it’s hard to demonize the rent prices. And why should the Ferry Building punish success? We, the food-loving Bay Area public, are not naive enough to delude ourselves with idyllic farm visions and ignore the role of money in our food system.

Monetary success of existing tenants is one thing; more concerning may be the new crop of tenants that has sprouted in the last two years or so, and the kinds of businesses that are being provided opportunities.

Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle A man walks with beer in hand from the Fort Point walk-up window...

In 2015, a handful of shops opened under the north arcade, along the Embarcadero. Today, those are occupied by Fort Point Beer Co., Sow Juice (a small juice company owned by Luisa Alberto) and a second outpost of Blue Bottle, roughly 43 strides from the other Blue Bottle.

Fort Point has raised at least $3.5 million — according to 2016 reports as the upstart brewery sought even more funding — and serves more than 1,500 retail accounts, according to reports.

Another newcomer, Dandelion was founded by Todd Masonis, who started the chocolate company after he sold his startup for a sum reported to be between $150 million and $170 million.

Urban Remedy, the juice and healthy snacks company that opened a kiosk a little more than two years ago, closed a $17 million round of funding led by General Mills in January. That brought its financing to $28 million, according to Inc.com.

Another of the newest tenants is Glassybaby, a decorative glassmaker, which opened a kiosk in 2017. The 20-year-old Seattle company counts Jeff Bezos — yes, the Amazon.com founder and oh, the richest man in the world, per Forbes — as one of its patrons. He bought a 22 percent stake in the company a decade ago, for somewhere between $1 million and $5 million, according to reports at the time. Forbes said that Glassybaby did $20 million in revenue in 2016.

Photo: Jessica Christian, The Chronicle Employees of Glassbaby arrange a variety of colored glass candle...

The Ferry Building is still a great place to eat, but increasingly, it seems like its artisanal mantra is fading, along with the dream of small businesses and its mission to, in its own words, “promote the Bay Area’s vast ethnic diversity.”

In December 2002, a few months before the Ferry Building’s grand opening, original developer Chris Meany called his dream “the showpiece of food culture of the Bay Area.”

He was right at the time. The Ferry Building was never perfect, nor will it ever be, but it had a clear, if impossible, vision. Now, 15 years later, its businesses are full of investment firm money and corporate interests. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but it’s a thing.

Then again, as I leave the Ferry Building, I walk by a Philz coffee shop, which Crunchbase says has raised $75 million, and then Crystal Jade, the $14 million Chinese restaurant in the Embarcadero Center owned by luxury goods giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Anchor and Lagunitas are owned by global corporations, I remember, as I think about grabbing a beer at the new Schroeder’s. Wu-Tang echoes in my head: Cash rules everything around me.

I guess Meany might still be right.