Overview The North Beach Festival closes the streets around Columbus and Green in San Francisco's old Italian neighborhood for a free weekend every June, and its organizers count it as the country's first free outdoor arts and crafts festival. More than 200 artisan vendors line the footprint, with live music on three stages, outdoor beer and cocktail gardens, chalk artists working the pavement and a Blessing of the Animals outside the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi. The North Beach Business Association presents it in collaboration with Sunset Mercantile, a San Francisco producer of neighborhood markets and cultural festivals that started in 2014. On site The festival runs 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. both days. Vendors sell local art, crafts, jewelry, apparel and vintage, and North Beach restaurants cook alongside Bay Area food trucks. Chalk artists fill Vallejo Street for the Italian Street Painting Promenade. At the Maker's Block local artists run silk-screening, jewelry and leather sessions, and visitors forge a medallion from recycled aluminum. In 2026 the Green Street Party Lot paired a cocktail garden with KXSF DJs. The blessing takes place at 1 p.m. each day. Coit Tower and City Lights Bookstore are in the same neighborhood, and Muni's 8 line is the way in, with no festival parking. Audience Sunset Mercantile describes the crowd as San Francisco and Bay Area locals and visitors who come to shop, eat and drink. The festival falls on Father's Day weekend, so families come for the kids' zones, and dog owners bring pets on leashes for the daily blessing, where a pet-adoption pop-up ran in 2026. Track record Proceeds are granted to local community organizations running free meals, after-school activities, job training and temporary housing, and the beer and cocktail gardens raise money for local groups. Sunset Mercantile's own events reach more than 200,000 people a year by its count, and in 2024, on the company's tenth anniversary, Mayor London Breed declared December 7 Sunset Holiday Mercantile Day in San Francisco. Brand presence Zoox presented the 2026 festival, and Avenue Greenlight presented the Maker's Block. Below the presenting position, a brand can take a stage and put its name across the stage area, supply the beer, wine or spirits, brand the bars and gardens, or run an activity such as the kids' play area. Sunset Mercantile also builds custom additions: extra booth space, a hands-on activity to pull people to a booth, an electric vehicle on display, a branded dining area or banners on the main stage.