The San Francisco Belle – Viewed from the Embarcadero, San Francisco, California

The San Francisco Belle is a replica of the stern paddlewheel riverboats of the 19th century. She was built in 1994 in Louisiana and used as a floating casino on the St. Charles River in Missouri. Acquired by the Hornblower Corporation in 2001, the Belle is the largest capacity dining yacht on the West Coast. She features three fully enclosed climate-controlled decks and a sun deck with a canopy cover. With 30,000 square feet of event space, four bars, a modern galley and two elevators, this vessel can accommodate up to 2,000 guests.

The Embarcadero (Spanish: Wharf), is the eastern waterfront and roadway of the Port of San Francisco. San Francisco's shoreline historically ran south and inland from Clarke's Point below Telegraph Hill to present-day Montgomery Street and eastward toward Rincon Point, enclosing a cove named Yerba Buena Cove. As the city grew, the cove was filled. Over fifty years a large offshore seawall was built and the mudflats filled, creating what today is San Francisco's Financial District. The San Francisco Belt Railroad, a short line railroad for freight, ran along The Embarcadero. The roadway follows the seawall, a boundary first established in the 1860s and not completed until the 1920s.

During the early-20th century when the seaport was at its busiest and before the construction of the Bay Bridge, the trolley loop, now the plaza in front of the Ferry Building was one of the busiest areas of foot traffic in the world; only Charing Cross Station in London and Grand Central Terminal in New York City were busier. Piers 1, 1½, 3 and 5, that now comprise the Central Embarcadero Piers Historic District, were dedicated chiefly to inland trade and transport. These connections facilitated the growth of communities in the Sacramento- and San Joaquin Valleys and fostered California's agricultural business. The Delta Queen docked at Pier 1½, ferrying people between San Francisco and Sacramento. There was once a pedestrian footbridge that connected Market Street directly with the Ferry building and a subterranean roadway to move cars below the plaza. In the earliest days, a maze of cable car tracks terminated here, servicing the ferry commuters. These were eventually replaced by a loop for several streetcar lines.

During World War II, San Francisco's waterfront became a military logistics center; troops, equipment and supplies left the Port in support of the Pacific theater. Almost every pier and wharf was involved in military activities, with troop ships and naval vessels tied up all along the Embarcadero.

However, after the completion of the Bay Bridge and the rapid decline of ferries and the Ferry Building, the neighborhood fell into decline. The transition to container shipping, which moved most shipping to Oakland, led to further decline. Automobile transit efforts led to the Embarcadero Freeway being built in the 1960s. This improved automobile access to the Bay Bridge, but detracted aesthetically from the city. For 30 years, the highway divided the waterfront and the Ferry Building from downtown. It was torn down in 1991, after being severely damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. After the freeway had been cleared, massive redevelopment began as a grand palm-lined boulevard was created, squares and plazas were created and/or restored, and Muni's N Judah and T Third Street and F Market & Wharves lines were extended to run along it, with the N and T lines going south from Market Street to Fourth and King Streets (at AT&T Park and the Caltrain station) and the F line going north from Market to Fisherman's Wharf. The Muni is also planning a new ‘E’ line to run up the Embarcadero, past the wharves, to Aquatic Park.