Fisherman's Wharf: Sizzling Crab Pots and Sourdough Bowls

Why is it significant?

Stand beneath the giant spinning neon crab-wheel sign at Jefferson and Taylor Streets, where thick white steam billows into the air from open-air sidewalk cauldrons.

Key Facts

PlaceFisherman's Wharf: Sizzling Crab Pots and Sourdough Bowls
AddressJefferson St & Taylor St, San Francisco, CA 94133
Geo Coordinates37.80800, -122.41580
Part of WalkSan Francisco By The Bay: Cable Cars, Lombard Curves, and Fisherman's Wharf
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Open the walk

Stand beneath the giant spinning neon crab-wheel sign at Jefferson and Taylor Streets, where thick white steam billows into the air from open-air sidewalk cauldrons. The air is rich with the aroma of freshly boiled sweet Dungeness crab, steaming clam chowder ladled into crusty round sourdough bread bowls, and freshly fried calamari.

During the late nineteenth century, Italian immigrants from Genoa and Sicily settled here, taking their distinctive wooden double-ended lateen-sailed feluccas out into the fog-shrouded waters of the Pacific to haul in nets of salmon, cod, and sweet Dungeness crab.

In eighteen forty-nine, French baker Isidore Boudin blended French baking methods with wild airborne sourdough yeasts unique to San Francisco's microclimate, creating the tangy sourdough bread that has sustained wharf workers and travelers for over one hundred and seventy years.

Continue east along the waterfront to the lively boardwalk of Pier Thirty-Nine.

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