Since last fall’s crabbing season, Greenling Fish Market has sold locally caught fish—halibut, cod, rockfish and salmon—at the South Berkeley Farmers’ Market. The Greenling setup has a completely different backdrop at Fisherman’s Wharf in the city. I walked up to the solitary stand there as a seal with speckled skin drifted by on the surface of the water.
Planted on a short wooden pier off the main tourist drag, the stand itself is rudimentary. Just a couple of folding tables sheltering large coolers filled with fish and ice. The informality extends to the team. In between sales I met with Ruby Zalduondo who defined her role at Greenling as, “Manager or coordinator. I guess ‘manager’ might be the right word.”
Zalduondo formed Greenling with Sarah Bates, a commercial fishing captain whose primary catch is salmon. Bates reached out to her last year with the idea to start a local fish market, along the lines of the Monterey and Tokyo Fish Markets.
“We were working with the boats selling crab right here off the dock, and we were boiling crab for customers,” Zalduondo said. “We were also selling filets to people.” Bates is one of many local fishermen supplying Greenling with fish.
While Zalduondo and I talked, a couple approached the stand and purchased a whole salmon. Filets are processed in the buildings Zalduondo pointed out directly behind us across the harbor. TwoXSea is one of the nearby companies Greenling uses; it prepares fish for restaurants and markets alike. “Because we’re a pop-up here we have to sell either whole or vacuum-packed, and they help us with their master filleters,” Zalduondo said.
She also showed me where Bates’ boat, the Bounty, is docked. Bates, who’s also the president of the Institute for Fisheries Resources, spoke with me on the phone a few days earlier. “Our two main fisheries in San Francisco have been salmon and crab for the past 20 years,” she said. “Those have been the primary drivers of our entire fleet and our entire seafood market.”
Greenling, Bates said, “is still very much a baby, but this fish market is an effort to teach both visitors and locals in San Francisco, first of all, how delicious our local seafood is.” Tourists visit Fisherman’s Wharf with the preconceived idea that the boats are all historic. “But that’s not at all true. San Francisco is still the largest fishing port in California,” she said. Bay Area locals, Bates added, also don’t understand “our fishing fleet, our fisheries, and the species that are available here and how delicious and nutritious and sustainable they are.”
Zalduondo noted that Bates has been the key figure, “the brains and the logistics,” to get Greenling off the ground. “She’s been working here in the wharf for many years, and she’s got all the relationships with the port and the fishermen,” Zalduondo said.
Even though Greenling operates as a pop-up, the market is trying to gain some momentum to encourage the Bay Area to buy fish caught here. “This is primarily a tourist destination,” Zalduondo said. “Getting more residents here at the wharf will help not just the city, but it will also support the local fishermen.”
The profession faces a number of imposing challenges including the environment, the economy and regulation. “Fewer young people who have the pathway in front of them want to become commercial fishing captains,” Zalduondo said.
Both she and Bates also described some of the more dangerous aspects of fishing. “There’s a physical cost—not all of us have all of our fingers,” Bates said. “We lose people every year, and it’s tragic and heartbreaking.” At the same time, fishermen have access to some of the most beautiful places in the world, “which I think is good for everybody’s mental health,” she said, adding, “We have access to some of the best protein in the world.”
As a deckhand, Zalduondo described the work as a marathon. “You’re out on the sea in the sunshine, and you’re catching fish and pulling them up on the boat,” she said. “You have to have the energy and stamina for it.”
But there are also moments of awe. This past winter on the crab boat, she and David, the boat captain, saw orca whales a few feet away. David told her that over the course of his decades-long career he’s only seen orcas twice. “So you see these awesome things, and you get to be on the sea,” she said. “You get to be in the sunshine—for some of it at least.”
Greenling Fish Market, Tuesdays at Adeline and 63rd streets, Berkeley; Saturdays at 101 Al Scoma Way, San Francisco. greenlingfish.com
