If you were to imagine San Francisco’s most Yelped restaurant, you might think of a bustling Union Square outpost of a global chain like the Cheesecake Factory. Or perhaps, if you were less cynical, you might think of something affordable and inextricably linked to SF, like a burrito joint. Either way, you’d be wrong.

The city’s most popular restaurant — using its more than 13,000 Yelp reviews, more than any other restaurant in the entire Bay Area, as a gauge — is located in Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s not part of a corporate chain run by a faceless CEO. Rather, its stewards are third-generation San Franciscans whose grandfather built Pier 39 in 1978. It’s been around for about 20 years, a blip in time compared with other restaurants in that neighborhood, yet it serves memorable clam chowder and crab risotto all the same.

But what really stands out about the Fog Harbor Fish House is the view. There simply isn’t a bad table in the house. No matter where you’re sitting in this cavernous Pier 39 restaurant, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island and the bay are yours to take in. 

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The Fog Harbor Fish House has views of the bay and Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, shown on Sept. 17, 2026.

The Fog Harbor Fish House in San Francisco on Sept. 17, 2026.

A view of the Fog Harbor Fish House at Pier 39 in San Francisco on Sept. 17, 2026.

The family’s company, Simco Restaurants, operates Fog Harbor and five others on the pier: Wipeout Bar and Grill, Pier Market Seafood Restaurant, Eagle Cafe, Crab House and Biscoff Coffee Corner. Together, they see a million guests annually, with Fog Harbor Fish House accounting for 400,000 of them, according to Simco CEO Ryan Simmons, who took over after his father, Scooter Simmons, retired a few years ago. Surprisingly, they’re not all out-of-towners. According to Ryan, a little more than half of Fog Harbor diners live in the Bay Area’s nine counties. 

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The dining room is busy on a Thursday afternoon at the Fog Harbor Fish House in San Francisco on Sept. 17, 2026.

“You would be shocked at how many repeat guests we have,” Ryan told SFGATE, referring to locals who come five to seven times a year, usually with a guest in town. “One of the challenges that we deal with is the perception that we’re a tourist trap restaurant, but we care so much about the quality of the product and the service and experience that we deliver.”

That might be why the majority of those Yelp reviews — a staggering count exceeding 11,000 — give the restaurant four and five stars. Simco Chief Operating Officer Bob Partrite, who has been with the company for 31 years, stresses consistency in everything they do, from greeting customers and providing table service to how food looks on the plate. 

“When I go to a restaurant, I tend........

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