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Fisherman’s Wharf is in trouble. But it’s still more than a tourist trap
JOHN KING Sep. 5, 2023
The view east from Al Scoma Way distills the allure and afflictions of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf into one vivid tableau.
Directly in front of you is the wharf’s inner lagoon, where small fishing boats sway in the water. Behind them are stocky buildings that, for generations, housed such multilevel family-owned restaurants as Alioto’s and Tarantino’s — both of which sit vacant.
This juxtaposition captures the present-day realities of a place known around the world, yet dismissed by many locals with a shrug or outright scorn. Now, as with much of San Francisco, people with a stake in this historic area are trying to figure out what should come next.
That task is easier said than done.
The bustling hustle that makes detractors of the wharf area recoil is real, such as the blur of shops selling the likes of “Straight Outta Alcatraz” T-shirts, their salespeople calling out to passersby. So is the predawn clamor along Pier 45 — where fish processors prepare seafood for wholesalers before it is transported to the market in delivery trucks, or the Saturday sales of freshly caught fish from boats docked down Al Scoma Way.
The question is how to strike a balance between these realities: the tourist magnet that, before the pandemic, drew as many as 14 million visitors a year while generating nearly $300 million in sales, and the atmospheric dockside locale with roots stretching back to the 1800s. Proposed answers range from pop-up concerts to a concept that would transform part of Pier 45 into a fish-themed “experiential museum.”
Many of today’s concerns are fueled by fears that empty storefronts and a perceived decay in street conditions might erode the wharf’s reputation and drawing power in the long term.
But in a way, Fisherman’s Wharf seems more in sync with the larger city than at any point in decades: Its luster is faded, but the underlying appeal remains strong.
There’s no need to brave the crowds at Pier 39 to watch a sea lion up close. Just lean against the railing when Zack Medinas’s Gatecrasher pulls into its slip below Jefferson Street.
Seagulls circle low as Kyan Walker bones and guts the daily catch, which currently includes black cod and halibut. Then, with deft expertise, he slips the skin off each side of the fish in a single stroke — and dangles each skin over the water so that Larry, the burly pinniped who patrols the inner lagoon, can stretch up from the surface to snatch it away as fascinated onlookers press close.
“He’s got a monopoly,” Walker, 21, laughed when describing the one-eyed sea lion that shows up like clockwork when the Gatecrasher returns from open water. As for the gawkers snapping images on their cell phones, the deckhand takes it in stride: “It’s eye candy — people love it.”
No wonder. They’re not watching a staged act; they’re glimpsing the reason that Fisherman’s Wharf exists.
Italian fishermen made this their base not long after the Gold Rush, and by 1902 author Charles Keeler had dubbed the array of colorful boats nestled near Telegraph Hill “the most picturesque spot on the waterfront.” That exotic scene in turn attracted visitors, and the enclave became an attraction.
“Twentieth-century commercialism and Old-World tradition go hand in hand at Fisherman’s Wharf,” noted a 1940 guide from the federal Works Projects Administration. It described “neon-lit shops” as well as the nets hanging above the docks after hundreds of boats returned from their day’s work.
Those hundreds now number around 80, according to the Port of San Francisco, from largish commercial vessels to small boats that juggle their own fishing with sightseeing excursions, or charter expeditions where up to six people head out to catch what they can.
Matt Juanes has chosen a different route: The resident of Lodi (San Joaquin County) goes out solo or with a deckhand, often overnight. He sells his catch to Pier 45 processors during the week and direct to the public from his boat on Saturdays.
“That was a game changer,” Juanes said of the program set up by the port in 2017 that allows fishers to deal with customers face to face, a throwback to the wharf’s early days. “It lets us have a bit more freedom and build (personal) relationships.”
Where Juanes docks, within feet of Scoma’s outdoor seating, it’s easy to forget you’re in a city of more than 800,000 residents: The nearby wooden buildings have a weathered look, and the forested heights of Fort Mason hug the water to the west. Not so where Medinas ties up — the block of Jefferson Street across from his berth is lined with shops aimed at tourists in search of tattoos or hoodies, cameras or shot glasses. People who seem unhoused or mentally ill loiter along the docks.
“It’s weird to see what’s going on,” said Medinas, who frequently gives food to indigents as he walks back to his car parked near Pier 45. As for the silent presence of Alioto’s and Tarantino’s, “It’s such a shame to see all that sitting empty.”
Where Medinas sees a shame, city government sees a troublesome void.
“It’s a real changing of an era,” said Elaine Forbes, who since 2016 has been executive director of the Port of San Francisco. “We want to keep this a great public space despite the challenges we face.”
The port property extends along the water west from Pier 39 — an amalgam of more than 100 shops and eateries that routinely is high on the list of San Francisco visitor destinations — to the workaday Hyde Street Pier. In between is the corner of Taylor and Jefferson streets, where the vacant Tarantino’s and Alioto’s frame a gift shop, also closed.
The south side of Jefferson Street is privately owned, with large and small buildings controlled by owners local and distant. This explains why there’s such a difference between the inner lagoon and the slapdash shops across the way.
“At least we’ve got the water and the fishing,” said Meghan Wallace, the port’s economic recovery manager. Her hope: “That people are looking out at the bay and ignoring the tacky tourist attractions.”
However messy the combination might be, there’s no denying the economic imporetance of Fisherman’s Wharf to San Francisco. In 2019, port tenants at the wharf generated $132 million in sales plus $11.3 million in rent. This doesn’t include revenue from Pier 39 or Ghirardelli Square, which rises from Aquatic Park and serves as the western anchor to the tourist zone.
Revenue plunged when COVID hit, no surprise, and three years later that’s still the case. On port-owned property, sales are down 30% and rents 20% from that 2019 peak. For Fisherman’s Wharf as a whole — the area roughly bordered by Bay Street, the Embarcadero and Polk Street — sales tax revenue indicates a drop of about the same amount.
The half-dozen restaurants on port-owned land that remain closed, now too large and formal for today’s fast-casual world, are a big problem. Beyond the economic hit, they’re a visual blight along several blocks of Jefferson Street that compounds the sense of decline associated with so much of San Francisco right now.
This is accented by concerns about the surge in car break-ins — five of San Francisco’s 12 most-targeted intersections are within two blocks of the wharf — and the unlicensed vendors who line up between Pier 39 and Pier 41 selling everything from stuffed toys to serapes to bacon-wrapped hot dogs.
“There are more homeless people on the streets. The streets are a little dirtier, and there seem to be more mentally ill people,” said Ken Brown, who, with his brother, operates Frank’s Fisherman, which sells nautical antiques and resort-type men’s clothing. As for business this summer, Brown shrugged: “It’s a little better. Not like four or five years ago.”
That perception is part of why the port has pulled together funding to start initiatives to revitalize the scene.
There’s $300,000 for a new ice machine, where boats can load up on the ice they need to store fish caught at sea. An additional $3 million will pay for a floating dock off Al Scoma Way that will give fishers more space to sell directly to consumers, and consumers a convenient spot to buy fresh seafood.
On the tourism side, the port awarded $2.2 million this spring to the Fisherman’s Wharf Community Benefit district for everything from a free concert series on Fridays and Saturdays through September to hiring “ambassadors” who can assist visitors and provide an extra layer of low-key security. There’s also money for renovating storefronts, to lure potential tenants.
“A clean, safe environment with a good vibe — that’s what we’re aiming for,” Wallace said. “We want to create a sense that things are happening, it’s not closed and sad.”
At a larger scale — and with a longer timeline — is a proposal by local developers to remake the heart of the traditional wharf.
The team includes Lou Giraudo, who was chairman of Boudin Bakery in 2005 when the family-owned outfit built a flagship bakery on Jefferson Street, next to a triangular parking lot that serves Pier 45 and adjacent restaurants.
The first phase of what Giraudo describes as “a vision that we hope becomes a plan” would turn the eastern half of Pier 45 into a multifaceted attraction, including an events space at the site of a fire that destroyed a storage shed in 2020. A second shed — now home in part to the Musee Mecanique, a showcase of vintage arcade machines — would house a seafood-oriented food hall plus interactive exhibits on the fishing trade. There would also be a small fish-processing facility intended to show how that work gets done, similar to the glassed-off bakery production line at the Boudin shop on Jefferson Street.
Phase two would fill the triangular parking lot with a plaza and perhaps a small working winery, with short-term lodging on top. The site would be re-engineered for seismic resiliency and sea level-rise adaptation.
“We’re trying to make Fisherman’s Wharf a beginning and an end to tourism for the city and the region,” said Giraudo, whose team includes developer Seth Hamalian and former supermarket executive Chris McGarry. At the same time, he emphasized, “We don’t want a Disneyland. We want to preserve a legacy.”
Even if City Hall and regional agencies give their blessing to an actual plan, construction wouldn’t start for several years. But such a forward-looking initiative would help counter the wharf’s current malaise, Giraudo argued.
“We’re in a crisis, but it’s a solvable crisis,” Giraudo said. “We can revive things and add things.”
More pressing for some players along the wharf is what happens in coming months.
“The clean and safe piece is the underlying linchpin to everything,” said Rodney Fong, a property owner and former president of the city’s Planning Commission.
Fong’s perspective is shaped not only by his post with the chamber, but also through roots that reach back generations and show how Fisherman’s Wharf has — and hasn’t — changed.
His grandfather, Thomas Fong, was a Cantonese immigrant who in 1963 converted a grain mill into the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf on Jefferson near Taylor. This came two years after a 1961 report from the city’s Planning Department had described the area as “bristling with brash signs of every color and description” that forced tourists “to run the gauntlet of these Coney Island-type distractions.”
In other words, tourism and the “real” Fisherman’s Wharf have jostled with each other for more than 60 years. Even so, Fong and others say the current scene feels different.
“The wharf has always been the water’s edge, this gritty part of town, that’s part of its character,” Fong said. “The (current) sense of lawlessness, that level of intensity — it’s going through the city, but we haven’t seen it here before.”
Not everyone shares a sense of crisis.
Nick Hoppe operates Cioppino’s restaurant and six shops along Jefferson Street. He got his start after college, working for Pier 39 developer Warren Simmons when that complex opened in 1978.
Hoppe doesn’t deny negative impacts lingering from the pandemic, particularly the restaurant vacancies and car break-ins. Overall, though, he sees this summer’s crowds as a signal that the rebound is under way.
“The beauty of the wharf is, it’s like stepping back in time. … People come down to get close to the water, have lunch or dinner” and buy a few souvenirs, Hoppe said. “I love being down here — everyone’s in a good mood.”
That was the case with Jason and Sarah Williams, who dropped their children off at school one recent morning and headed to the wharf to celebrate Sarah’s birthday. They live in El Cerrito and hadn’t visited the city in several years.
“It’s wonderful to be here, such a beautiful setting,” Sarah said as Jason smiled and nodded. “So pleasant … being locals, we hear all the news about all the crime in the city. It’s actually cleaner than I expected.”
Nearby, Adriana and Fabio Rossi were at the wharf for their second time since arriving in San Francisco on vacation from Italy.
“It’s a nice area, not dirty, with many restaurants and many shops,” said Adriana, comparing the scene to Union Square, where they were staying. “Definitely, here you feel safe.”
Visitors like these perhaps see something that insiders miss.
Every popular big city has a district that’s a first stop for tourists — a place to kill a few hours, take selfies, buy trinkets to take home. The place where you get your grounding and grab a bite.
Fisherman’s Wharf has been that place for San Francisco for generations. Tackiness and street crimes have been concerns throughout. So has the fear that fishing may not survive.
But the fishing endures, as do the twists that make the wharf feel like more than a tourist trap — from sea lions pulling up along fishing boats to the coin-fed cacophony of Musee Mecanique, sharing its Pier 45 shed with crab pots stored six high on wooden pallets.
At Jefferson and Hyde streets, across from one of Hoppe’s shops, is the path to the aged vessels of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. Down the block, you can rent bicycles to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. Views beckon in every direction.
Those encounters are what create fond memories. And despite the undeniable strains now facing Fisherman’s Wharf, they still cast a powerful spell.
San Francisco’s tourist magnets, 2022 Share of survey respondents who visited each attractionA bar chart showing the 20 most visited San Francisco attractions in 2022, according to a survey with 2,420 responses. Golden Gate Bridge is the most visited S.F. attraction, with 49% of responses. Golden Gate Bridge 49%
Pier 39 45%
Golden Gate Park 42%
Ghirardelli Square 38%
Presidio 35%
Ferry Building 32%
Lombard Street 28%
Alcatraz Island 26%
SkyStar Wheel 22%
Legion of Honor 21%
Data is based on a visitors’ survey with 2,420 responses. Chart: Adriana Rezal/The Chronicle Source: San Francisco Travel Association
San Francisco’s top tourist neighborhoods, 2019 Share of survey respondents who visited each area A bar chart showing the 10 most visited San Francisco neighborhoods in 2019, according to a survey with 2,373 responses. Fisherman’s Wharf is the most visited neighborhood with 53% of responses. Fisherman’s Wharf 53%
Union Square 47%
Embarcadero 28%
Chinatown 26%
SOMA/Yerba Buena 17%
Financial District 14%
Presidio 13%
North Beach 12%
Mission District 11%
Civic Center 11%
Data is based on a visitors’ survey with 2,373 responses. Chart: Adriana Rezal/The Chronicle Source: San Francisco Travel Association