Audiffred Building
When the fires of 1906 swept toward the waterfront, the Audiffred Building at the foot of Mission Street should have burned with everything else. Legend holds that it was saved because someone -- accounts vary on who -- bribed the firefighting soldiers with wine and whiskey to turn their hoses on the building while the surrounding blocks were consumed. Whether the story is precisely true, the three-story commercial building survived the disaster and stands today as San Francisco Landmark number 7, a French Second Empire structure that feels transplanted from a Parisian boulevard to the edge of the Bay.
Waterfront Survivor
The Audiffred Building was constructed in the 1880s in the French Second Empire style, with mansard rooflines and ornamental ironwork that reflected the tastes of its French-born builder. Its location at the corner of Mission Street and the Embarcadero placed it at the nexus of San Francisco's maritime and commercial life. The ground floor housed waterfront bars that served longshoremen, sailors, and dock workers. Upper floors housed offices, including the headquarters of a seamen's union. The building's survival of the 1906 fire, when nearly everything around it burned, gave it a kind of talismanic status among preservationists.
From Dive Bars to Fine Dining
For much of the 20th century, the Audiffred Building retained its working-waterfront character, with bars and businesses that served the dockworkers and maritime laborers who worked the nearby piers. As the waterfront economy shifted from shipping to tourism and technology, the building's ground floor was transformed into Boulevard restaurant, one of San Francisco's most acclaimed dining establishments. The conversion from longshoremen's saloon to white-tablecloth restaurant mirrors the Embarcadero's broader transformation from working waterfront to culinary and cultural destination.
A Building That Tells Time
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Audiffred Building stands as a physical timeline of San Francisco's waterfront evolution. Its French architecture recalls the cosmopolitan ambitions of 19th-century San Francisco. Its survival of 1906 connects it to the city's most defining disaster. Its transition from working-class bars to fine dining tracks the gentrification of the waterfront. Standing at the foot of Mission Street, looking up at the mansard roofline, visitors see a building that has witnessed every era of San Francisco's history while remaining stubbornly present.
From the Air
The Audiffred Building is at 37.79N, -122.39W, at the foot of Mission Street on the Embarcadero waterfront. The distinctive French Second Empire building stands near the Bay Bridge approach. Nearest airports: KSFO 10nm south, KOAK 8nm east.