Menlo Park's First Holiday Season Without Cook's Seafood, and Local Crab Is Running Late Too

In November 2009, InMenlo ran a short post titled Crab From Cook's, a Seasonal Treat, about buying Dungeness from longtime counter clerk Dan Dowler. Seventeen years later, InMenlo's Linda Hubbard told The Almanac why Cook's had always been her family's fish store. "My very frugal mother only bought seafood from Cook's when I was growing up in Menlo Park," she said. "And I've followed in her footsteps. Always the best — it will be missed."

Cook's Seafood closed on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. Two days later, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife delayed the commercial Dungeness crab season until at least Jan. 1, 2027. Either change alone would have disrupted the holidays. Together they mean that this year, commercially caught local crab can't land on a Menlo Park holiday table before Christmas, and when it does arrive, the counter that sold it on El Camino Real for nearly a century won't be there.

Ninety-Eight Years on El Camino Real, Closed Overnight

Cook's began in 1928, when Bill Cook, a local police officer turned business owner, opened it in Menlo Park. In the 1940s he sold it to Robert Rahe, who ran the market until his death. In 1963, Rahe's wife sold it to Roy Crumrine, an employee who had been there since 1955. For almost a century, the business passed from one person who knew the counter to the next.

It was a fish market and a restaurant side by side. The market sold swordfish, mahi mahi, Dungeness crab, and live or cooked lobster. The restaurant served sand dabs with steak-cut fries, petrale sole sandwiches, crab Louie, clam chowder and cioppino. SFGate reported that fish and chips started at $7.99 and made up one-third of restaurant sales. In a Peninsula food scene where a fish dinner usually costs much more, that price was a big part of Cook's draw.

The notice posted at the Menlo Park building read: "We are sad to inform you that after 98 years, we are closing all locations effective October 28, 2026. As you know, this year has been very difficult for restaurants." The owner confirmed the closure to SFGate by text. The Pleasanton location, which opened in 2025 after years of anticipation, closed too.

The timing is what matters for the holidays. Dowler told The Almanac that summer is usually the slowest season for fish and that Cook's was heading into its most profitable stretch. So the counter closed just before the weeks it was busiest.

The Crab Calendar Moved Too

If Cook's had stayed open, its crab case would still have looked different this November. On Oct. 30, CDFW Director Meghan Hertel delayed the commercial Dungeness fishery from the Oregon border to Point Conception until at least Jan. 1, 2027. That stretch, Fishing Zones 1 through 5, includes the Bay Area coast. The department cited the number of humpback whale entanglements in 2026 and the high number of humpbacks across the fishing grounds. It said the delay also gives the whales time to migrate out of California waters before commercial crabbing starts.

This is a whale issue. It isn't a health issue for local crab. The one domoic acid closure CDFW announced covers waters from Cape Mendocino to the Ten Mile State Marine Reserve, far up the coast in southern Humboldt and northern Mendocino counties.

Sport crabbing opened on Nov. 7 with a catch. Recreational crab traps are banned from the Oregon border to Point Conception, Fishing Zones 1 through 5, through at least Jan. 1. Hoop nets and crab snares are still allowed, but CDFW says hoop nets must be checked every two hours and can't be left unattended. Anyone planning to go out should read the current rules on CDFW's Whale Safe Fisheries page first, because they can change between risk assessments. This post is general information, not legal advice. CDFW is the authority on what's allowed on the water.

The date to watch is mid-December. That's when CDFW expects to hold its next risk assessment, which will look at all available data plus a recommendation from the Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group. That assessment will decide whether commercial crabbing can open and the trap ban can lift around the new year.

Between Now and the First Commercial Crab

Here's how the season lines up from this week on, with Menlo Park's own holiday dates in between:

Locally caught commercial Dungeness will miss both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. For a town whose crab habit centered on one El Camino Real counter, the season effectively starts in January, if the December assessment allows it.

Where the Fish Counter Moved

With Cook's gone, Menlo Park's closest fish counter is downtown. Draeger's Market at 1010 University Dr. has a "Meat, Fish, & Poultry" department with its own phone line. The store's weekly ad for late October and early November 2026 included a seafood section with cooked prawns and a prawn platter, the kind of item that tends to show up on a holiday spread. Calling the counter before a big order is the best way to find out what's in stock that week.

A short drive north, Bianchini's Market at 810 Laurel St. in San Carlos is open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. The store says it gets seafood deliveries nearly every day, and its late-October weekly specials included a fresh steelhead trout fillet. Bianchini's is on Laurel Street, the same downtown San Carlos stretch that's carrying the holiday season while Harrington Park is closed.

For fish straight off a boat, the option is over the hill at Pillar Point Harbor, One Johnson Pier, Half Moon Bay. The San Mateo County Harbor District lists dockside fish sales and a fish market among the harbor's activities. It also runs a Fish Line at 726-8724 for checking what local boats have that weekend. Because commercial crab boats can't start until January at the earliest, the Fish Line is the way to learn what's actually landing before you make the drive.

None of these is a full replacement for Cook's. Draeger's is a full grocery with a fish department, Bianchini's is a neighborhood market in another town, and Pillar Point means a drive to the coast. What Menlo Park lost was a counter devoted to fish, where the clerks knew regulars well enough to call when sand dabs came in. One commenter on InMenlo's closure post said exactly that.

The Second Long-Running Counter to Close This Fall

Cook's wasn't the only closure this fall. In late August, The Almanac reported that Lutticken's Deli & After 5 Restaurant, at the corner of Alameda de las Pulgas and Gordon Avenue since 1981, would serve its last sandwich on Sept. 30. Its satellite locations on the Stanford campus and on Sand Hill Road were also scheduled to close in September. Manager Judy Congdon, who had worked there since opening day, told The Almanac the business had never fully recovered from the pandemic.

Lutticken's was known for sandwiches on Dutch crunch bread. In 2011 it added an evening restaurant with live music, karaoke and open mic nights. In 2024, state Sen. Josh Becker named it Senate District 13's Small Business of the Year.

West Menlo Park's long-running deli and El Camino Real's long-running fish counter both closed within one season. Cook's closure letter blamed a difficult year for restaurants, and Lutticken's pointed to a business that never came back after COVID. Both were owner-run counters with clerks who knew customers by name, and both closed within a month of each other in fall 2026.

The Holiday Dates Still on Menlo Park's Calendar

The city's own holiday events haven't changed. Cocoa at the Campus runs Monday, Nov. 30, from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Belle Haven Community Campus, 100 Terminal Ave. It's free and includes youth performances, hot cocoa, mini churros and a small tree lighting. Light Up the Season is Friday, Dec. 4, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Fremont Park, at University Drive and Santa Cruz Avenue. It's free and goes on rain or shine, and this year the city is lighting the oak and giving the pine a rest.

Photos with Santa is Saturday, Dec. 12, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center, 700 Alma St. Admission is $5 per person, and reservations opened Nov. 2. CDFW's risk assessment is expected around the same week, and it will decide whether commercial crab can open in January.

We're Riette and Ralph of The Fallant Group, and we pay attention to the places that make a neighborhood feel like home. If you have a Cook's or Lutticken's story, or a fish counter you've started using since October, we'd love to hear it. And when you have a real estate question, big or small, Schedule a Consultation and we'll talk it through.