Menlo Park Lost Its Fish Counter the Same Week the Holiday Crab Was Delayed

In November 1972, Dan Dowler applied for a job at Cook's Seafood. His interview was a single question. As he told The Almanac, the owner, Roy Crumrine, asked whether he could read and write. Dowler said yes and was hired on the spot. More than half a century later, around 3 a.m. on Oct. 29, a text from the owner's family told him not to drive in. "We are sad to inform you that after 98 years, we have closed all Cook's Seafood locations Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026," it read.

Dowler told the paper that the timing surprised him. Summer is usually the slow season for fish, he said, and Cook's was about to go into its most profitable stretch of the year.

The rest of the season changed the next day. On Oct. 30, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife delayed the commercial Dungeness crab fishery until at least Jan. 1, 2027. Over two days, Menlo Park lost the counter at 751 El Camino Real and the crab that holiday menus usually depend on. Replacing Cook's this season therefore means finding a new place to buy fish and also deciding what goes on the holiday table.

Two announcements, two days apart

The notice in the window said only that the year had been hard for restaurants, SFGATE reported. The Pleasanton store had been open for little more than a year when it closed along with the original.

What Cook's actually covered

Cook's was nearly as old as the city around it. Bill Cook, a local policeman turned businessman, founded it in 1928, according to Palo Alto Online. Robert Rahe bought it in the 1940s. Roy Crumrine, who had been an employee since 1955, took it over in 1963. The Menlo Park Historical Association dates the city's current incorporation to Nov. 23, 1927, so the shop opened about a year after the city did.

It was also two businesses under one roof, which makes it harder to replace. The market sold swordfish, mahi mahi, orange roughy, Dungeness crab, and live or cooked lobster. The restaurant side served fish and chips, sand dabs with steak-cut fries, petrale sole sandwiches, salmon patty fish burgers, crab Louie, clam chowder and cioppino. "My very frugal mother only bought seafood from Cook's when I was growing up in Menlo Park," Linda Hubbard of InMenlo told the paper. "And I've followed in her footsteps."

No single replacement covers all of that. The closest substitutes differ by what each one does well:

• Draeger's Market, 1010 University Dr., Menlo Park. This is the closest full seafood counter to downtown, inside a Meat, Fish & Poultry department with its own phone line. Draeger's says fresh fish arrives daily, and the case carries live lobster, freshly cooked crab and caviar. Sushi is made every day.
• Schaub's Meat, Fish & Poultry, Stanford Shopping Center, Palo Alto. A full-service market for fresh fish, poultry and meat, with staff on hand to advise shoppers. That suits the cook planning a larger holiday spread.
• Roberts Market, Woodside. Its seafood page describes fish that is very fresh and never frozen, plus sushi made daily.
• Pillar Point Harbor, One Johnson Pier, Half Moon Bay. The harbor offers dockside fish sales and a fish market. The details are in the dock section below.

The counters can stand in for the Cook's fish case. Nothing listed here sells a finished bowl of chowder over the counter in the same way.

Why the crab is late, and what that means through New Year's

For a lot of local households, the holiday week Dowler was expecting would have meant cooked Dungeness and the ingredients for cioppino. This year, the state's decision has more to do with the menu than any one store does.

CDFW delayed the commercial fishery from the Oregon border to Point Conception because of the number of humpback whale entanglements in 2026. Local News Matters cited preliminary National Marine Fisheries Service data, reported by the Center for Biological Diversity, showing 37 whale entanglements off California, Oregon and Washington in the first nine months of the year. That total, which includes 30 humpbacks, is the highest since 2016. The same outlet reported that the commercial season was held up twice last year as well.

Local News Matters put the result plainly: "Don't plan on Dungeness crab being on Bay Area dining tables for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's Eve."

The calendar runs in this order:

1. Nov. 7: the recreational season was set to open in most of the state. Crab traps are restricted in Fishing Zones 1 through 5 until at least Jan. 1, 2027, but hoop nets and crab snares are allowed. CDFW requires hoop nets to be serviced at least every two hours.
2. Mid-December: CDFW expects its next risk assessment, which will inform a possible commercial opening around the new year. Director Meghan Hertel will review the data, including a recommendation from the Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group.
3. Jan. 1, 2027: the earliest possible commercial opening, since the delay runs until at least that date.

The domoic acid closure in this year's announcement covers Cape Mendocino to the Ten Mile State Marine Reserve, far north of the San Mateo coast. CDFW's San Francisco regulations map runs from Point Arena to Pigeon Point and covers most of San Mateo County's coast. Anyone going out with a hoop net should read CDFW's current rules first, because the restrictions can change after each assessment.

Until January, the "freshly cooked crab" in a Peninsula case will not come from California's commercial fleet. It makes sense to ask the counter where its crab was caught. Petrale sole and sand dabs, two of the Cook's menu staples, are not tied to the crab calendar.

The dock as a weekend errand

Pillar Point Harbor is the one option on this list where fish comes straight off a boat. The San Mateo County Harbor District lists dockside fish sales and a fish market at Johnson Pier. Its Looking for Fish? page advertises weekend fish sold directly by local fishermen and lists a Fish Line, 726-8724, for availability updates. What's for sale depends on what came in, so calling before the drive over the hill can save a wasted trip.

That changes the shopping. At Cook's, a cook planned the menu and then bought the fish. At the dock, the catch comes first and the menu follows. A Saturday trip to Half Moon Bay can stand in for a weekday stop on El Camino Real, but it is a different kind of errand.

The same autumn on the Alameda

Cook's was the second long-running counter in Menlo Park to close this fall. Lutticken's Deli & After 5, at Alameda de las Pulgas and Gordon Avenue, served its last sandwiches on Sept. 30 after 45 years, and its Stanford and Sand Hill Road counters closed with it. Manager Judy Congdon told The Almanac that business never recovered from the pandemic. "It's just not sustainable anymore," she said. In a Palo Alto Online story the week before the closing, Bobby Lutticken said the family hoped "there will be something there."

Down the same street at 3207 Alameda de las Pulgas, Bob's Country Corner makes sandwiches to order and takes deli orders by phone. On Middlefield Road, The Willows Market's counter serves tri-tip and brisket sandwiches.

Both closings came just before the city's own milestone. The city's Light Up the Season event on Friday, Dec. 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Fremont Park, Santa Cruz Avenue at University Drive, opens Menlo Park's Centennial Celebration. This year the city will light its oak tree and give the pine a rest. The event is free and goes ahead rain or shine, and the city is asking people to shop and dine at downtown businesses while they are there.

When a business that has been part of daily life for generations closes, it can raise questions about what comes next for the block around it. If you own property nearby and would like a discreet conversation about it, Stephanie Von Thaden is glad to help. Request a Confidential Home Valuation and we can start with what is happening on your street.