SF’s Dungeness crab season is finally underway, and the freshest crab you can possibly buy will be on sale starting this Sunday morning, bright and early, down at Fisherman’s Wharf’s Pier 47 where you can buy crab fresh off the boat.
Because SF’s commercial Dungeness crab season gets delayed every year, you may not have realized that Dungeness crab season did in fact kick off for 2026 this past Monday. So the Dungeness crab must flow, and now it will do so, with the relatively new fabulous feature that you can now buy raw Dungeness crab fresh off the boat to give you the freshest possible Dungeness crab dining experience.
And the crab fishers would like you to know that the first day of those fresh off-the-boat crab sales will be this Sunday, January 11, on a floating dock right behind Scoma's restaurant on Pier 47. Hungry crab buyers are advised to show up early (the lines to buy crab last year were quite long), and to bring cash, which is the fishermen’s preferred form of payment. Be aware there is no parking on Al Scoma Way, so you’ll have to find parking elsewhere around the Wharf before you go crab shopping.
According to the informal Facebook San Francisco off-the-boat crab sales page and the SeafoodFromTheBoat.SF Instagram page, you can expect the crab to be selling for about $11 a pound. Once sales start Sunday, the fishermen will be out there selling crab pretty much every Saturday and Sunday going forward for the season, plus sometimes on Friday, and maybe the occasional Thursday. You can watch those above-named Facebook and Instagram pages for detailed weekly updates.
Here’s a handy map to help you find the dock where they're selling fresh Dungeness crab at Fisherman’s Wharf. And if you're heading down there to buy crab, the Port of San Francisco recommends you bring your own hard-sided container, that is, a cooler or a bucket.
We do not know how long commercial Dungeness crab fishing season will last now that it is underway. But for reference, last year it ended on May 1. So this fresh crab will likely continue to be sold on weekends down at Pier 47 until sometime about April, May, or maybe June of this year.
Related: Fresh-From-the-Boat Crab Sales Begin With Long Lines at Pier 47 [SFist]
Image: Shawn Chen Flading via Facebook
