In a somewhat shocking twist, noted Union Square bar Gold Dust Lounge set for closure earlier this year, will move to Fisherman's Wharf. Yes, Fisherman's Wharf. So the next time you find yourself at the Wharf (i.e., making a a Double-Double run), you will be able to enjoy that old-time Gold Dust charm while throwing back a few gin martinis. more ›

The fuzz was called to Pier 45 today after two tourists spotted a dead woman floating in the San Francisco Bay at around 11:20 a.m. The Chronicle reports, "Police, firefighters and a crew from the city's fire boat found the body near Shed B of the pier, not far from the USS Pampanito submarine." more ›

Brief updates from Fisherman's Wharf today, where the ongoing pricing dispute between crab fisherman and the seafood processors threatens to damage crustacean-based Thanksgiving dishes. One local fish market owner told SFoodie today that an agreement could still be a few days away, meaning the first shipments won't come pouring in to area seafood emporiums until the Monday after Thanksgiving. more ›

Eager crackers may need to hold on to their crab mallets a few days longer. The Chronicle reports that the always eagerly anticipated dungeness crab fishing season, which was supposed to begin bright and early this morning, has been delayed due to a dispute in pricing between the Crab Boat Owners Association and the local seafood processors. After a disappointing salmon season, the fisherman are hoping to get $2.50 per pound for the crustaceans. Last year's going rate was about 75 cents less. more ›

According to SF Appeal, a man was shot near Fisherman's Wharf on Sunday night. The man, a guy in his late 40s/early 50s was found near Taylor and North Point Streets a little before 6:30 p.m. "He was conscious and breathing when he was found, and was taken to a hospital with non life-threatening injuries." more ›

In order to keep the city's nexus of tourism and colorful panhandling safe, the Fisherman's Wharf Community Benefit District and the SFFD along with the Department of Emergency Management will be running a fake emergency this morning, reports Bay City News. The safety drill should happen sometime between 9 and 11 a.m. this morning and is followed by a PIERsafe expo about local emergency response tools and training. It all goes down at the aquatic park, so be on alert, Dolphin Club swimmers. more ›

The historic Fisherman's Wharf crab purveyors at the Alioto-Lazio Fish Company have reopened after being dark for the better part of the year. The staff of all-female fishmonger at the generations-old wholesaler were forced to close their doors back in January due to an oil leak. While they obviously missed their projected reopening date of February, the girls are back in business just in time for dungeness crab season. more ›

The kitchen staff of Castagnola's, the 95-year-old fish and pasta joint perched on a pier in Fisherman's Wharf, staged a complete walkout during a busy tourist rush last Saturday. Inside Scoop's Paolo Lucchesi reports that without any staff the restaurant was forced to ask a full dining room of over 200 people to leave, taking an estimated 40 grand or more in revenues with them. more ›

An upstart pedicab company, operating mostly along the Embarcadero, has ruffled the feathers of some more "established" pedicab companies who claim that not all of the new company's drivers are properly permitted. The established companies have now gone to the press and the City to declare that West Coast Pedicab is allowing unlicensed foreign exchange students to ferry tourists back and forth in their open-air vehicles, and that these students never paid their $300 permit fee to operate a pedicab. more ›

So there's this guy named Fofana Mbemba, and he's well known to police and Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi for working Fisherman's Wharf over the years to scam tourists out of money through various means. His latest tactic has involved pretending to be a parking attendant at a self-service lot, wearing a t-shirt with some insignia on it that looks vaguely official, and saying "that'll be $10 sir" whenever someone parks. Then he disappears, and all the cars with his fake tags on them get parking tickets. more ›

A public defender for Hong Ri Wu, the fisherman's wharf souvenir shop owner who shot and killed two neighboring shop workers back in January, has claimed that her client is not mentally competent to stand trial. As you'll recall, the shooting occurred after Wu claimed the neighboring shop was selling identical knockoff handbags and blocking the view to his store with a sidewalk display. more ›

Al Yeganeh, the man who inspired the "Soup Nazi" on Seinfeld, is coming to San Francisco. Well, his chain of soup store will come here, anyway. "The Wharf outpost of The Original SoupMan will be the chain’s first West Coast location, and is anticipated to debut around late May," reports Paolo Lucchesi of Inside Scoop. "All the famous soups will be there (Seinfeld geeks will remember that Jambalaya, Lobster Bisque, Crab Bisque, and Mulligatawny all got noted on the show), and since it’s San Francisco, there will be an added bonus of Cioppino." [Inside Scoop] more ›

Saturday was a glorious day, wasn't it? Very warm and walkable for a January day. It was also an oddly serene day for abortion rights, or lack thereof, along the waterfront. On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, hordes of anti-abortion zealots came to the city for the annual Walk For Life fete. more ›

The Aquarium of the Bay, that little Aquarium over by Pier 39, just got a new tenant: an almost-five-foot-long shovelnose guitarfish. It looks like an 80s hair-band bass, we suppose, like a Gibson Explorer Shadow, but anyhow, it's a female, and she'll be there for the duration. Photo by Steve Hewgley of a Monterey specimen. [Examiner] more ›

The news of how charmingly our local denizens treat tourists around the Wharf just keeps getting better: Mr. Aldax at the Examiner brings word today of an incident outside a local grocery store (could it have been the Safeway over there?), in which a man walked up to another man who was standing outside the store snacking, asked for directions to the nearest liquor store, and got "slugged" in the head with a bottle of salad dressing. more ›

One of the many street performers angling for tourists' quarters at Fisherman's Wharf was detained Saturday evening after trying to get some extra attention for his juggling act. The man was juggling what appeared to be an authentic hand grenade, and the SFPD freaked. They proceeded to close the 300 block of Jefferson Street around 5 p.m. on Saturday, detained and questioned the juggler, and finally figured out the grenade was a fake. Get this: the juggler may still be facing charges. more ›

In a new endorsement for S.F. as America's number-one tourist destination (18th year in a row, boyeee), two "transients" attacked a tourist couple near Fisherman's Wharf last week. As Mike Aldax reports in the Examiner, the male transient challenged the man to a fight while the female transient pressed a lit cigarette into the man's wife's cheek. more ›

The apparently vile and repugnant (we have no idea; no one who lives in SF goes there) area of San Francisco known as Fisherman's Wharf will start a clean up program this week. It's called "Summer Sweep at the Wharf," and it's "designed to keep the areas looking good during the peak of San Francisco's summer tourist season." Volunteers are already removing graffiti in the Stockton Tunnel "while SFMTA workers restriped curbs and crosswalks near North Point Street and Van Ness Avenue." Check it out (Psst, the area harbors the city's only In-N-Out.) [via SF Appeal] more ›

Tourists at Fisherman's Wharf watch as master baker Fernando Padilla makes holiday sourdough bread shaped like a bunny for Easter at Boudin at the Wharf in San Francisco. The historic bakery will be making the bunny sculpted bread through Sunday.(AP Photo/Eric Risberg) more ›

After this weekend's shooting death outside Suede Nightclub and Lounge, which took the life of 20-year-old Lawson Hall, authorities have temporarily suspended the Fisherman's Wharf venue's license. more ›

Early Sunday morning a 20-year-old Richmond man allegedly shot three people outside Suede nightclub, at 383 Bay Street, near Fisherman's Wharf. One of those shot, 19-year-old Richmond man Lawson Hall, is dead, and the two others suffered life threatening injuries. The suspect was shot and later arrested by a patrol special police officer in the neighborhood. A conflict inside the nightclub allegedly moved onto the street, where at least the one gun was drawn. more ›

Sea lions spotted in massive numbers off the Oregon coast, after disappearing off Pier 39 right after Thanksgiving. more ›

We noted last week the recent infestation of sea lions spilling over down at the piers, and this week's SF Weekly has a piece about efforts by Sausalito's Marine Mammal Center to rehabilitate injured and malnourished sea lions -- efforts which are, kinda, aiding the overpopulation. Writer Ashley Harrell points to the fact that sea lions have traditionally been used by environmentalists as "charismatic megafauna," i.e. the kind of cute, endearing animals who can serve as the public face for a preservation cause and rally support via their adorable little faces. more ›

"Surrounded by so many boob and beer joke tee shirts that you could almost miss it," this classic-comedy (albeit hateful) t-shirt is for sale right now at Wharf T Shirts (on Jefferson between Leavenworth and Jones) in Fisherman's Wharf. Charming, no? No. more ›

We're not sure there is such a thing as a *good* wax figure, but we're sure the people at the Fisherman's Wharf Wax Museum would like us to think so. In any event, your afternoon palate cleanser today is this collection (via Buzzfeed) of really bad wax figures that's making its way around the webs. Sources aren't given, so it's very possible that one or two of these are featured in our very own museum, but having never stepped foot inside, we cannot confirm. Perhaps one of our eagle-eyed commenters will recognize something. Here we give you a selection, featuring scary-bad versions of the Cast of Seinfeld, Julia Roberts, Cher, LeAnn Rimes (looking, um, "special"), Michael J. Fox, Barack Obama, and Pulp Fiction-era John Travolta and Uma Thurman. PREVIOUSLY: Wax Obama to Arrive at Wax Museum Today more ›

A wax statue of President Barack Obama will arrive, via the F Market, at the Fisherman's Wharf wax museum today around 3PM. The first 100 patrons at the museum after Wax Obama's arrival will get in free. Tourists from far and wide shall now come to our fair city solely for the purpose of viewing our very own Wax Obama. more ›

Early this morning, at around 4 a.m., a man was plugged in the ass near Fisherman's Wharf at Bay and Taylor streets. According to reports, the "[t]wo suspects were arguing with the victim near the intersection when one suspect pulled out a gun and shot the victim in the buttocks." The victim was whisked to SF General Hospital. He is expected to live. No arrests have been made. The nearby In-N-Out, San Francisco's only Double-Double fix location, was unharmed. more ›

In conjunction with Sunday Streets, there will be a Fitness, Health & Safety Fair this Sunday at Fisherman's Wharf from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (for those who want to brave the Wharf). more ›