This Fantastic SF Market Is The Nation’s First Women-Led Food Hall
This popular food hall serves spectacular food from a wide variety of cultures.
Jamie Ferrell - Staff Writer
It’s Women’s History Month, and we’re celebrating La Cocina Municipal Marketplace, an enormous food market that just opened in 2021. The women-led market works to center business owners that often face barriers to success; namely women, immigrants, and people of color.
La Cocina’s website claims to have opened “the nation’s first women-led food hall.” They have worked to provide “an economic opportunity for working-class, immigrant women, a safe and accessible space for Tenderloin residents, and a transformational and replicable model for anti-gentrification and conscious, community-led development.”
The marketplace was announced over 5 years ago as a spacious food market for the Tenderloin. Construction had nearly finished on the 7,000 square foot space when the pandemic struck, so after another year of delay, La Cocina finally opened in April 2021. Since then it’s grown into a massively popular food market in the neighborhood.
Here’s what you can enjoy on any trip to the market:
- Boug Cali (Creole bodega) by Chef Tiffany Carter. Menu items include gumbo, smoked sausage and jerk tacos.
- Estrellita’s Snacks (Salvadorian) by Chef Estrella Gonzalez. Menu items include pupusas, tamales, fried plantains, and agua fresca.
- Kayma (Algerian) by Chefs Wafa and Mounir Bahloul. Menu items include delicious soups, sandwiches, grilled chicken, and baklawa.
- Los Cilantros (Mexican) by Chef Dilsa Lugo. Menu items include tostadas, chiles rellenos, and enchiladas.
- Mi Morena (Mexican) by Chef Guadalupe Moreno. Menu items include handmade corn tortillas, stews, rice, and grilled meats.
- Teranga (Senegalese) by Chef Nafy Ba Flafley. Menu items include peanut and bean stews, muffallettas, fresh juices, and spice blends.
In August, a new businesses was added to the La Cocina family: Fluid Cooperative Cafe. It’s an exciting pop-up cooperative cafe and event space owned by Shannon Amitin, Santana Tapia and JoJo Ty, 3 trans San Franciscans who want to foster an inclusive place for transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming customers and staff. At the moment they serve both brewed and iced coffee options, such as a Japanese sweet cream cold brew, to be enjoyed with a variety of milks and sweeteners. You can also buy roasted whole beans to take home.
La Cocina Municipal Marketplace is open for coffee and breakfast bites from 8am-2:30pm, and lunch items 11am-2:30pm on weekdays. The accompanying Paloma Bar is open from 11am-8pm weekdays, with Happy Hour from 4-6pm. Find the marketplace at 101 Hyde Street.
Featured Image: Photo by Erin Ng