Nearly 100-year-old Sicilian seafood restaurant Alioto’s Restaurant will close its doors permanently, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
The institution has a rich, turbulent history on San Francisco’s famed waterfront—and its closure marks the end of a family legacy.
Founded by Italian immigrant Nunzio Alioto in 1925 — and before it became known as a pioneering seafood restaurant — Alioto’s was just a humble fish stand. Eventually it moved into Stall #8 on Fisherman’s Wharf and sold lunches to Italian workers, hence the illuminated #8 on the building’s facade. As business thrived in the 1930s, Alioto combined its fish stall with a fish bar selling shrimp and shrimp cocktails and fresh Dungeness crab. It was the very first building on the quay.
Even after his death in 1933, his family members carried on the restaurant’s legacy: his surviving wife, Rose, stepped in and became the first businesswoman at Fisherman’s Wharf. After expanding and turning the restaurant into a formal restaurant in 1938, it became Alioto’s, the institution that proudly served “the freshest seafood, Italian family recipes, and the best views” for decades to come. It survived a devastating fire in 1957 and served soldiers in World War II, but has not been able to reopen its doors as of March 2020.
Until the pandemic struck, it prepared traditional Sicilian seafood recipes, serving halibut, salmon and rich clam chowder along with sole and swordfish.
“The loss of Alioto’s — a famous Fisherman’s Wharf icon — is heartbreaking for the port and the generations of San Francisco residents and tourists who have enjoyed the dining experience at Alioto,” Port of SF spokesman Randy Quezada told SFist in a statement. “Your contribution to the port and the city will not soon be forgotten.”