Image Credit: Cook’s Seafood
Cook’s Seafood did not reach its 100th birthday. The Menlo Park restaurant and fish market closed on October 28, 2026, ending a business that began in 1928 and became part of the Peninsula’s dining habits over nearly a century.
The closure also included its much newer Pleasanton location. For regulars who assumed there would be another fish-and-chips lunch or another stop at the seafood counter, the announcement removed both options at once. SFGATE confirmed the shutdown with owner Roy Crumrine.
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A meal out and a market stop under the same name
The original business stood at 751 El Camino Real. Its identity combined two reasons to visit: prepared seafood to eat and fresh seafood to take home. That made Cook’s relevant to more than a restaurant reservation or an occasional celebration.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s account describes customers ordering fish and chips at the counter and buying seafood from the market, where staff could help with tasks such as cleaning fish and preparing crab. The restaurant menu also included chowder, seafood sandwiches, and grilled fish.
That pairing helps explain why a closure like this leaves more than one gap. Someone could rely on the business for a ready-made lunch while another customer knew it as a place to ask questions about dinner ingredients. Replacing those habits may require two different stops.
How the business reached 98 years
Bill Cook founded the business in 1928. Ownership later passed to Robert Rahe and then, in 1963, to Roy Crumrine, an employee who had worked there since the 1950s. Those changes are documented in The Almanac’s local history and closure reporting.
The same report follows longtime counter worker Dan Dowler, who learned of the shutdown through an overnight message. His account gives the loss a human scale: the end of Cook’s also meant the abrupt end of an established workplace and daily relationships.
It is easy to turn a 98-year history into a single impressive number. The people who carried the work through those years make the number meaningful. Restaurants do not remain familiar through a sign alone; they depend on the repeated work behind the counter.
The second location closed too
Cook’s expanded to Pleasanton in May 2025 after a lengthy development process. That newer restaurant closed alongside Menlo Park, so customers cannot simply switch to the East Bay address for the same business.
The fact that the closure followed an expansion is not proof that the expansion caused it. The posted notice described a difficult year for restaurants, but the available reporting did not establish a detailed financial explanation. Assigning blame to one factor would go beyond what the owner confirmed.
A familiar stop becomes part of local history
Anyone saving an old recommendation should mark both locations as closed. The photographs, menus, and recollections remain useful as a record of Cook’s, but they should not be mistaken for current service information.
The loss is especially sharp because the business served an ordinary need so well: a recognizable place to eat fish and chips or buy seafood for home. Those dependable choices rarely require a grand occasion. Their absence is felt the next time lunch comes around and the usual answer is no longer there.