Golden Gate Market

OVERVIEW

The Golden Gate Market has anchored the southern edge of Old Town Sausalito since the 1940's — a neighborhood institution known for its gourmet deli, local wines & spirits, and unhurried pace. This market is a wonderful place on the South Side of Sausalito to take a break from your journey, enjoy a snack and take in the history of our historic Old Town.

HISTORY

Old town was inhabited by a group of the Coastal Miwoks for 2500 years.  In 1775, Spanish explorers land right here and named our town.  William Richardson made this his first home in 1838.  John C. Fremont, Kit Carsen and his band of soldiers camped here in 1847 during the Bear Flag Revolt.  The US Navy made this the Pacific Fleet Headquarters in 1850.  But the connection we are making for our Whiskey Trail is when a German merchant named Joseph Lowder — former owner of the Buffalo Hotel near what is now Scoma's — sold his waterfront property and built the Walhalla, a German Biergarten, one block from here (201 Bridgeway) in 1893. Designed by San Francisco/German architect Wildrich Winterhalter, it housed a full bar, restaurant, and dance hall, with an outdoor covered terrace for food and drink served over the water. It was loud, sawdust-on-the-floors, and beloved. During Prohibition, the Walhalla became one of Sausalito's most active bootlegging operations — a 1921 raid netted 478 quarts of illegal spirits, and by 1932, gangster Baby Face Nelson was tending bar. In 1947, Orson Welles filmed a scene from Lady from Shanghai here with Rita Hayworth. In 1948, Sally Stanford bought the building and renamed it the Valhalla — beginning a new chapter in Sausalito legend.  today, both the German Biergarten and Sally Stanford is is long gone. But the spirit — the rowdy, generous, and wonderfully German legacy — still lingers at this corner of the bay.

FEATURED WHISKEY — Slyrs Bavarian Classic Single Malt

Slyrs Distillery · Lake Schliersee, Bavaria, Germany · 43% ABV

Distilled since 1999 at the foot of the Bavarian Alps using local Bavarian barley, matured in new American white oak casks. Gold Medal, World Whiskies Awards. Honey, vanilla, stone fruit, and a clean Alpine finish. The Walhalla served German beer for decades on this waterfront — Slyrs pours the same Bavarian terroir, just distilled rather than brewed.