Famous San Pedro fish market signs 49-year lease to stay in West Harbor

Owners of the San Pedro Fish Market and Restaurant, a top-grossing restaurant that once sprawled across a wooden pier in the Port of Los Angeles, have signed a 49-year lease to rebuild at their historic waterfront home.

For decades the Fish Market was part of Ports O’Call, a tourist attraction that was razed in recent years to make way for a new regional attraction called West Harbor that is now under construction.

The restaurant built a loyal following of customers who spent about $30 million a year before the pandemic on its heaping trays of shrimp, lobster and other seafood shared at spare metal tables on the weathered pier.

Members of the Ungaro family, the restaurant’s owners, planned in 2021 to move the operation to another location in the port but have now committed to staying in West Harbor as an anchor tenant.

The restaurant will stand next to the new development’s amusement park, which will include a Ferris wheel that is expected to be as much as 50% higher than the Pacific Wheel at Pacific Park amusement center on Santa Monica Pier.

The Fish Market currently is operating with mobile kitchens in temporary outdoor quarters in the parking lot next to its former site, where it served 450,000 diners and grossed $16 million last year, according to Chief Executive Mike Ungaro.

Before moving into its new digs, the Fish Market will relocate to another temporary space on a part of the West Harbor site that is intended to eventually hold a hotel. It will operate there for about three years, serving 1,600 people at a time, while the market’s permanent home is built.

Eventually it will be one of the largest restaurants in the United States, Ungaro said, spanning 55,000 square feet and capable of serving 3,000 diners at a time — about the same capacity as its original location. Nearly 90% of the dining space will be on an outdoor patio overlooking the waterfront.

Planned features include event spaces, private dining options and areas for podcasters and other content creators to conduct live broadcasts, Ungaro said. The market has appeared on lists of the most Instagrammed restaurants in the U.S., with posts typically showing people tucking into mammoth trays of seafood.

“They’re an institution in San Pedro,” said Eric Johnson, senior project executive for the West Harbor development. “It’s really important that we’ve been able to provide them a long-term home.”

San Pedro Fish Market and Restaurant will have a long-term home next to the amusement park at West Harbor.

(Studio One Eleven)

The $155-million first phase of West Harbor, which will include restaurants, bars and shops, is set to open late next year. Its developers announced in October plans to expedite construction of the next phase, which calls for the amusement park, more food tenants and an array of outdoor pickleball and padel courts. The permanent home for the Fish Market will be part of the second phase.

The Fish Market also announced that it will open a 17,000-square-foot restaurant at Old Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey in Northern California in 2026.