The Crab Station

If you don’t have time to sit down and eat at one of the restaurants near by and just want some San Francisco clam chowder this would be your spot. It’s right on the street and ready to serve. I can’t say if it was the best chowder I’ve had but it did the job. Being that it is on the street, you are dealing with lots of people, birds, and smells from the neighboring seafood stands and no tables to sit. You have to walk over to the pier side for some bird infested public tables. My friend got fish and chips and they weren’t anything special. Just your run of the mill long john silver’s frozen fish patties and stale fries. I’m not complaining because you do have choices in the area, but it was quick and easy.

Clam chowder here is delicious but honestly tastes just like the other stands near by…
The crab cake was way overpriced for a single small crab cake :(
I’ve been here plenty of times and it’s consistent. I hear that people have seen them use the cans? If so, that sucks. But it sure tastes good in the cold SF air!

Best place to bring your touristy friends for San Francisco special crustacean crab treat.

After passing by this place a few times during our stay, my boyfriend and I decided to get a few things for a snack. We ordered the shrimp & crab cocktail and the clam chowder in a bowl. The cocktail was 10 bucks but they give you a decent amount. It was good but not the best we have had. The reason for the 4 stars is based purely on the chowder! The night before we had the chowder hut which is across the street. Let me just say that the chowder at the crab station completely blew chowder huts out of the water!!! If you’re looking for good chowder at a really good price, look no further! They also had a sit down area inside which was a lot nicer than trying to find a place to sit outside!

This place is good for a stand in a super touristy area, and the best part is there is a sitting area inside where you can eat, which is better than sitting on a bench nearby spilling chowder on your lap. When I go to a place like this, there are two real items that are worthwhile:
1) chowder in a bread bowl
2) crab salad sandwich
In reality, that is the only two real reasons to come down here if you have ever been before. If you’re lucky enough to take someone with you, get one of each and split it. Otherwise, I don’t know how you are going to decide.
Overall, I think there are several other places with similar quality food, but I like that you can sit down inside here and get away from a bit of the craziness outside.

clam chowder in a bowl! Add a crab cocktail to jazz up the chowder! yummmmmmm
No proper line, can always order on the street side if the sidewalk side has a long line!
Expedited ordering process if you can speak Cantonese or Mandarin!
They validate parking!

Shore food for the win
Food ⁴⁄₅
Typical crab lobster and other seafoods. Taste the same as all the other spots around it so kinda numbed out the uniqueness. But still good.
Location ³⁄₅
With so much foot traffic its hard to keep the area clean but it is street food style setting so can’t complain much.
Service ³⁄₅
Some attendants hard to understand due to language barriers. Very sales orientated atmosphere but sill can’t complain since it’s a street food environment.

Their fried calamari was something I picked up in passing and it was sooooo good! Crispy light tender and perfectly season. Definitely have found a new favorite.

Of all places for us to pick a seafood booth to try a bowl of clam chowder we picked this station. We ordered a plate of calamari which was pretty good. But the clam chowder… the minute I tasted the soup and noticed how they cut the potatoes, I told myself is this from the campbell can? (I know my canned soups,)
Sure enough when one of the workers went in the kitchen. I saw boxes of huge cans of Campbell New England clam chowder!!! Terrible… I should’ve just went to a grocery store and save me couple of bucks instead of coming here! never again!

I usually come here whenever friends are visiting and want to be tourists at Fisherman’s Wharf. I always order the Calamari, which is nice and crunchy. The line is sort of disorganized, so make sure they know you are there.

As I was exploring Fisherman’s Wharf, I was a little overwhelmed by all of the options for a quick bite of seafood. I wasn’t ready for a meal but couldn’t leave without trying some seafood so I started to wander. This store is in a row of so many little seafood booths, I had no idea what to choose. I noticed very quickly that the crab cocktail (what I was looking for) was $ 7 at basically every booth.
I pulled up my trusty Unilocal app and this one seemed to have a pretty decent overall rating (every booth I found was somewhere between 3 – 4 stars). The setup is a little confusing if you’re not used to it but I got my teeny, tiny container of crab and found a place to seat nearby (no seating inside here). The big chunks on top tasted great but when I got to the more shredded (for lack of a better term) crab meat underneath, it was… not so great. The tap was good but I found a lot of tiny pieces of shell.
I’ve had much better crab meat on the east coast at a much better price. Maybe it’s more fresh here but I prefer my crab meat without bits of crab shell.

My husband and I run the Embarcadero a lot! We always pass these Crab Stations and the smell always leaves me hungry! I love the smell of Crab and seafood! So we decided to get a snack!
We ordered a plate of Fried Calamari, which came with a side of cocktail sauce. It was $ 9.00 and it came with a lot! It wasn’t as warm as I wanted it to be. But it was still good. The side of crab was ok. It didn’t taste as fresh. It was a little cup for $ 7.00. A little overpriced.
I would come here again to try the crab melt sandwich. It looked delicious, but also looked hard to eat because they stuff the sandwich. The place is always busy so next time we’ll come in the morning when the food is still fresh!

Come here for the taste, not for anything else.
If you’re just looking for a good grub you’ve found it. I ordered steamed crab with basic seasonings (same way most would season at home), clam chowder and calamari. I like my crab plain so I liked it. Chowder is pretty good and calamari was well, calamari.
But below are things that you will lack however, which is rather standard with these «crab stands».
— Seating
— Service
— Restroom (need to find a public one)
— Space (cramped)
— Wet towel (ones provided are very low quality)
Personally I wouldn’t come back because of this Chinese guy that owns/​works there. Ladies were nice enough, but the guy gave me dirty looks when I asked why the crab price is unusually high. Then when I asked for direction to a nearest public restroom, he seemed very reluctant and muttered vague directions without even looking at me. I ended up going back to the hotel to use the restroom.

Clam chowder bread bowls were just okay. I felt like there were barely any clams in there, which was kind of a disappointment. But I would recommend the calamari! Fresh and delicious!

It’s hard to pick one stand from the few that stand at Fisherman’s wharf. I didn’t particularly enjoy this one greatly. The clam chowder is just a generic, plain chowder. The fried foods are pre-​made, just like the places surrounding this one.

Service is fast, but the place was disgusting.
The eating area was a mess with everyone’s trash. It was as if you are eating on a mountain of trash. I recommend going into their store behind the stand outside to sit and eat.
Watch for short changing. Know exactly how much your item costs and how much change to expect.
That said, the food was not bad.

I like the food! $ 9 for a crab and shrimp cocktail and $ 7 for a bread bowl. Not bad for the value.
I don’t like how unfriendly the owner is (I assume he is the owner since he looks older than other workers). The whole time I was waiting for my food and changes, his face remained the same — indifferent, careless and no smile. As if he is a machine to sell me merchandise.

This place actually serves more Shrimp than chips, unlike many other places.
The Shrimp and Chips I had, were pretty tasty. Shrimp was nicely fried and was pretty big, and the fries were nothing special but went good with it.
Prices were OK for most of the items, but they charge an arm and a leg for a bottle of water. Service was pretty lethargic as well, but I guess that is to be expected considering they were Asian and probably get tired of dealing with questions from tourist.
Not bad of a place!

What to order? We ordered the whole crab, yes whole. It is priced at by the pound. The one we got was about 2 pounds and was priced $ 15 per lb. Not much seating area and the Chinese workers, one have really bad english while another has good english.
The crab came pretty quick and pre-​cracked so it make it easier to eat. :D

During my first visit to San Francisco this week, I spent a couple of hours walking up and down Fisherman’s Wharf. After a 6 hour flight and two hours of walking, I was famished, and a quick Unilocal search brought me to The Crab Station.
I of course ordered the famous clam chowder in the sourdough bread bowl, and one crab cake. The crab cakes looked pre-​made and a little fried, but still tasted good (and it comes with free fries). The bread bowl actually doesn’t hold that much soup — so if you’re hungry, you can eat the bread too. I didn’t want to fill up on bread, so unfortunately I ended up wasting the bowl.
All in all, I’d say this is a great place to stop if you’re on the wharf and need a quick lunch option. They have an area with seating behind the outdoor station if you don’t want to walk and eat.