Daily Driver’s Ferry Building Location Opens With Bagel Sandwiches and a Sweet Van

Dogpatch bagel sensation Daily Driver’s only been open since June, but the restaurant — which is also San Francisco’s only cheese-making creamery — is already poised to open a second location in San Francisco’s Ferry Building this Friday.

The business, which is the brainchild of Potrero Hill residents David Jablons and Tamara Hicks (they also own Toluma Farms and Tomales Farmstead creamery) and Hadley and David Kreitz (she’s a cheesemaker, he’s an industrial designer/bagel recipe developer), first announced its plan to join the Bay Area’s (now booming) bagel scene in 2017. The venue started serving customers this summer and developed a booming delivery business, David Kreitz tells Eater SF. Hence, the van.

Yes, there’s a van parked in Daily Driver’s second location, a plum spot in the Ferry Building at shop #21, between the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant and Cowgirl Creamery. (Ferry Building denizens might recall it as the home of Boccalone, Chris Cosentino and Mark Pastore’s charcuterie shop, which closed in the fall of 2017.) The van, which Kreitz says he snagged based on an Oakland Craigslist post, is a Chevrolet shorty panel van circa 1984, a vehicle that reminded Kreitz of the van featured in seminal TV drama The A-Team, Kreitz says. (The car nerds among Eater SF’s audience — hello? — might note that the A-Team van is actually a 1983 GMC Vandura, but who’s counting?) “I originally intended it for deliveries,” Kreitz said, “but we ended up using other vehicles for that.” When prompted by Eater SF, he admitted, “The mileage isn’t great.”

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The vehicle won’t be using much gas in its current use inside Daily Driver’s shop, where Kreitz says the vehicle will be used to house non-food merchandise like logoed sweatshirts and tote bags. It doesn’t hurt that the vinyl-emblazoned vehicle is incredibly eye-catching, a pleasant antidote to the white-and-wood design aesthetic so commonly seen in businesses of its ilk.

Of course, restaurants can’t survive on eye-catchingness alone, especially in the competitive environment of the Ferry Building. The fortunes of Daily Driver’s Ferry Building location will rise and fall on its menu, which features a variety of their house-made bagels and spreads, pretzels, and bagel sandwiches with fixings like house-smoked lox, sprouts, and Daily Driver’s homemade cheeses. There’s also a setup Kreitz refers to as “bodega-style coffee,” a grab-and-go setup where folks can serve themselves drip coffee from Oakland’s Red Bay Coffee. Not only does Red Bay roast some of its beans inside Daily Driver’s Dogpatch space, but it’s created a single-origin brew for the company, Daily Driver chef Martin Siggins tells Eater SF.

The Ferry Building described Daily Driver’s residency as a “pop-up,” albeit a pop-up that lasts for a full calendar year. Kreitz says the company hopes to remain in the building after the year is up, but that after the pilot lease period, “they might move us, who knows?” Siggins says. That’s one reason for the streamlined and simple setup in their Ferry Building space. Another reason, both say, is because they wanted to open a space without the arguable bells and whistles of the far-more-elaborate production facility in Dogpatch — a spot that’s “no bullshit,” Siggins says, “where you can grab a bagels and keep moving.”

Here’s a look at Daily Driver’s opening menu at the Ferry Building:

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Daily Driver, Ferry Building opens on Friday, January 17, and will be open every day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.