Ghirardelli Square: The Brick Chocolate Dynasty

Why is it significant?

Step into the terraced brick plaza of Ghirardelli Square and inhale the intoxicating, warm aroma of roasted cocoa beans, molten chocolate, and freshly spun waffle cones.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step into the terraced brick plaza of Ghirardelli Square and inhale the intoxicating, warm aroma of roasted cocoa beans, molten chocolate, and freshly spun waffle cones. Above the historic red brick factory buildings, the iconic fifteen-foot-tall illuminated Ghirardelli sign glows brightly, welcoming ships entering the Golden Gate since nineteen twenty-three.

Italian immigrant Domenico Ghirardelli arrived in California in eighteen forty-nine during the Gold Rush, initially selling supplies and confections to miners before founding his chocolate empire in eighteen fifty-two. In eighteen ninety-three, his company bought this entire waterfront block, where giant steam-driven conching machines refined rich cocoa butter around the clock.

In nineteen sixty-four, when modern developers planned to demolish the factory for high-rise apartment towers, visionary citizens purchased the site and created America's very first adaptive reuse retail complex, saving the Victorian brick heritage of San Francisco.

Walk across Beach Street onto the wooden planks of Hyde Street Pier.