Noted local seafood purveyors, Woodhouse Fish Co. want to bring something fresh to the Marina Green — and not just their seafood. The family-owned restaurant group, which operates two seafood joints in the Castro and the Pac Heights as well as smokey Southwestern spot West of Pecos in the Mission, wants their fourth enterprise to be the only waterfront dining option on the Marina Green that doesn't require a yacht club membership.
According to Inside Scoop today, Woodhouse owner Dylan MacNiven has been working closely with the Rec & Parks Department to rehabilitate the run-down and fenced-off Marina Degaussing Station. (Which sounds like something out of Lost, and was a high-tech thing used by the Navy during World War II to help prevent ships from being detected by submerged magnetic mines.)
Anyhow, the station has been closed up for years, but MacNiven would like to tear down the barbed wire fencing around it and make the place a casual, counter-service waterfront cafe with plenty of outdoor seating. In our experience, seafood is best served in shack-y places, so the location really could not be better. As Scoop points out, there's a lot of foot traffic down there on the waterfront, but not much in the way of good eats aside from the Off the Grid food truck gatherings at Fort Mason and the Warming Hut farther down in Crissy Field.
Assuming the new Woodhouse spot makes it past all the appropriate hurdles and hearings, we can expect the menu to be fairly similar to the other two Woodhouse spots: cracked crab, lobster rolls and plenty of chowder for when the fog horns start blowing over the Golden Gate. Because Woodhouse is generally well-regarded around here, we don't expect too many legislative hangups, but neighbors have been notoriously (ahem) crabby, when it comes to putting restaurants on park land. So, let's not hold our breath just yet. Once they get the go-ahead from the Board, Woodhouse hopes to open just in time for (you guessed it) the America's Cup races next summer.
