SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Port of SF Unveils Plan to Revamp Fisherman's Wharf, Demolish Historic Alioto's Restaurant The days are numbered for Alioto's and its giant number 8 sign at Fisherman's Wharf, after the Port of San Francisco announced plans Friday to demolish the historic restaurant.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Oakland’s Famed Everett & Jones BBQ Taking Over Vacant Lou’s Fish Shack Space in Fisherman’s Wharf Nearly five years since the closure of Fisherman’s Wharf seafood spot Lou’s Fish Shack, the space is finally getting new life, with a lease just awarded to 51-year-old Oakland barbecue institution Everett & Jones BBQ.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Fresh-From-the-Boat Crab Sales Begin With Long Lines at Pier 47 The commercial Dungeness crab season finally kicked off this past weekend, after a now familiar two-month delay, and San Franciscans turned out in force on Sunday to buy some of the first catch from the boats.
Arts & Entertainment The Vacant Fisherman’s Wharf Madame Tussauds Is Getting a New Tenant — 'Smurfs: The Adventure' The vacancy blues are ending for the Fisherman’s Wharf building that had housed the now-shuttered Madame Tussauds, as a Smurfalicious new pop-up called Smurfs: The Adventure will bring a permanent new tenant to that Jefferson Street property in May 2025.
SF News Aquarium of the Bay’s Ex-CEO Goes Nuclear With Lawsuit Full of Wild Allegations Over His Ouster The former CEO of Bay.org George Jacob resigned in May amidst reports of lavish spending, but he’s hitting back with a ferocious new lawsuit claiming staff tried to secretly sell shark blood to Disney, and wanted to release all the animals back into the ocean.
SF News Beware Phony QR Code Scam Popping Up on SF Parking Meters Some fairly sophisticated scam artists have been slapping QR-code "Pay by Phone" stickers on SF parking meters, and the SFMTA just caught on last week.
Arts & Entertainment Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf Closes for Good After 61 Years Madame Tussauds, which had operated the longtime wax museum at Fisherman's Wharf for the last decade, has permanently closed up shop, and this staple attraction of the Wharf for several generations is no more.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Grocery Outlet Bargain Market On Verge of Coming to Fisherman’s Wharf There’s double the Downtown First Thursdays tonight; PG&E is looking to hike your rates again; and the Fisherman’s Wharf Grocery Outlet Bargain Market is on the verge of becoming official.
Arts & Entertainment That Record Number of Sea Lions at Pier 39? They’re All Gone Now Those 2,000 sea lions who’d crammed the docks of Pier 39 are now basically zero sea lions at Pier 39. But don't worry for them, they’re just off getting laid.
SF News More Details Emerge on CEO’s Lavish Spending That’s Imperiled Aquarium by the Bay, Feds Now Investigating Former employees are spilling the beans on the extravagant spending and head-scratching decision-making by now-fired Bay.org CEO George Jacob. He’s hired former SF supervisor Angela Alioto as his attorney, but that may be little help as the feds are reportedly sniffing around.
SF News Record Pier 39 Sea Lion Population Explodes Even Further, Now There’s More Than 2,000 of Them A sea of sea lions at San Francisco's Pier 39 has gotten even larger, and there is now an all-time record of more than 2,000 sea lions at the pier, smashing a 30-year-old record.
SF News Yet More Turmoil at SF’s Aquarium of the Bay, Which Just Lost Its Accreditation A terrible week gets even worse for SF’s Aquarium of the Bay and its parent nonprofit Bay.org, as the aquarium just lost its accreditation with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, amidst an almost-daily array of other scandals for the nonprofit.
SF News Bay Institute and Aquarium of the Bay Scandal Explodes, CEO Resigns Amidst Reports of Extravagant Spending What started as a bookish academic kerfuffle has blown up into a larger scandal of financial mismanagement, and the CEO of the SF Aquarium by the Bay and Bay Institute has stepped down as reports surface that he blew huge money on lavish travel and concerts in Dubai.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Owner of Two Shuttered Fisherman's Wharf Restaurants Sues City The owner of two historic Fisherman's Wharf restaurants that closed in recent years, Tarantino's and No. 9 Fisherman’s Grotto, is suing the city of San Francisco for millions of dollars, blaming multiple factors including pandemic closure orders for the restaurants' closures.
SF News Pier 39’s Sea Lion Population Surges to Seven-Year High, Fueled by Delicious Anchovies There may be more than 1,000 sea lions on SF’s Pier 39 right now, sunning themselves, barking, and getting good and fat, largely thanks to a school of anchovies available for them to feast upon.
Arts & Entertainment Mayor Breed Wants To Keep That Giant Ferris Wheel at Fisherman’s Wharf Another Year and a Half The 150-foot Ferris wheel that’s technically known as the SkyStar Observation Wheel is scheduled to shut down April 30, but could stay at Fisherman’s Wharf through October 2025 if Mayor Breed gets her way.
SF News Dungeness Crab Season Finally Starts Today, Fishermen Selling Crab Right Off the Boat The many-times-delayed local Dungeness crab season is finally here, and fishermen are selling the crab straight off the boat down at Fisherman’s Wharf Piers 45 and 47.
SF News A New Grocery Store Likely to Replace Former Safeway Near Fisherman's Wharf We have an update on the beleaguered, mostly empty NorthPoint Centre near Fisherman's Wharf, at the edge of North Beach, and its adjacent apartment complex, and it's good news for those in the neighborhood who miss having a full-service grocery store.
SF News Bribery Scandal In Fisherman’s Wharf: Nick's Lighthouse Owners Charged by FBI With Trying to Bribe Port Officials The good news is that established restaurateurs hope to take over the vacant Pompei’s Grotto and Lou’s Fish Shack. The bad news is they allegedly tried to bribe port officials with $19,000 to do so, and one of the port officials was actually an undercover FBI agent.
SF News SF City Hall Vows Crackdown on Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog Vendors for APEC “I would like to seize as many hot dog carts as possible,” vows one city official in emails obtained by Bloomberg, as a crackdown on hot dog vendors is curiously one of the items on SF’s APEC preparations to-do list.
Arts & Entertainment Golden Gate Park Ferris Wheel Moving to Fisherman's Wharf Ahead of APEC Summit The Ferris wheel that's been spinning next to Golden Gate Park's Music Concourse for three years is relocating to the more heavily touristed Fisherman's Wharf, and will reopen in two weeks.
SF News Three More Arrests Made In June's Rolling Gun Battle Down Embarcadero The SFPD announced three more arrests — two adults and one juvenile — in connection with a wild rolling gun battle in June down the Embarcadero from Fisherman's Wharf that left a young girl injured.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Fisherman’s Wharf Restaurants Fishermen’s Grotto and Tarantino’s Both Face Eviction Over Unpaid Rent Two more historic Fisherman's Wharf seafood restaurants may be biting the dust, as the 88-year-old Fishermen’s Grotto No. 9 and the 77-year-old Tarantino’s have both received eviction notices for unpaid back rent.
SF Politics Supervisor Peskin Proposes Moving the Golden Gate Ferris Wheel to His District, at Fisherman’s Wharf Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who was not a fan of putting the SkyStar Observation Wheel in Golden Gate Park, is now a fan of putting it in his own district in time for November’s APEC Summit.
SF News SFMTA Lowers the Speed Limit to 20 MPH on Nearly Two Dozen SF Streets Several streets in Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach, and Union Square just got their speed limits lowered from 25 to 20 mph, despite arguments that drivers ignore city speed limits and police don’t enforce them anyway.
