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San Pedro Fish Market talks Fish Fridays for Lent and ‘Kings of Fi$h’ reality show

March 11, 2025

Seafood lovers and Lent observers are in for some treats at San Pedro Fish Market.

The San Pedro Fish Market, located at 706 S Harbor Blvd., and its Long Beach and Wilmington locations are hosting Fish Fridays. Visitors can enjoy featured and specialty menu items and participate in the restaurant’s Instagram page contests to enter to win prizes every Friday until the promotion ends on Easter Sunday, April 20.

Michael Ungaro, CEO and owner of San Pedro Fish Market, said he and his family grew up Catholic and attended the Mary Star of the Sea Church in San Pedro and other Catholic schools. He said Lent has always been a big part of his community. In Christian tradition, seafood is eaten during Lent (for those who observe), usually on Fridays, to commemorate Jesus’ sacrifice on Good Friday. Fish is considered a cold-blooded animal, so seafood is allowed as a substitute for the cuts of meat produced by warm-blooded animals such as beef and chicken.

The San Pedro Fish Market in Long Beach, San Pedro and Wilmington is offering free food and other prizes as part of its Fish Fridays promotion, which runs through April 20. (Courtesy of San Pedro Fish Market)

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“Our customer base is primarily Catholic, so typically, on Fridays, this time of the year, our customers come looking for seafood,” Ungaro said in a phone interview. “Over the years, we’ve tried accommodating that with some specials so the food is not so boring. If you’re observing Lent, and that’s part of your tradition, we want to make sure that we have something a little different, not just fried fish.”

The first special offered on Friday, March 7, was a salmon sandwich with a side of fries. Other items and instructions for how to win free food will be revealed every Friday. While the sandwich is a personal dish, the restaurant offers others that emphasize sharing.

“We’ve found that celebrating food and family is one of our niches for which people visit us,” Ungaro said. “We’ve noticed over the years, especially on Sunday, which has been our busiest day right when mass is finished. We have a religious Catholic and Christian customer base that comes together as a family, celebrates in church and then comes to visit us. We’ve always tried to honor that, and that’s part of the reason that this promotion going on. It’s to thank them for their loyalty and being great customers.”

Some of those larger sharable dishes include specialty trays such as the restaurant’s famous “a la plancha” style shrimp tray, served with a platter of shrimp and veggie mix seared and slightly smoked. Other savory seafood shareables include ceviche, oysters, sweet and spicy calamari, and a 15-inch shrimp cocktail.

The Sea Food Market has operated as a family business since 1956 and has experienced several challenges, from losing its original location in the now-demolished Ports O’ Call Village to hitting a wall after plans to develop a new location in San Pedro’s cruise center failed due to permitting issues, not to mention the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the struggles, the seafood family business is on an upswing. It recently secured a 49-year lease with West Harbor as part of the new waterfront development, which is expected to take several years for construction to finish. Ungaro says it will span 55,000 square feet, making it “one of the largest restaurants in the United States.”

In the meantime, the San Pedro Seafood Market is operating out of its temporary location, The Landing Phase 2, which is also getting a bit of a makeover. It will add 900 more seats, which will be waterfront and make space for live entertainment. Ungaro said the plan is to wrap the construction fully by Mother’s Day.

The restaurant’s battle to secure a new permanent location will be part of the second season of the Amazon Prime series “Kings of Fi$H,” which documents the family’s restaurant empire. The next season could air sometime in the fall, according to Ungaro. However, seafood fans of the iconic restaurant don’t have to wait too much longer to get real-time updates on what’s going on behind the scenes. Ungaro is launching his podcast this month, where he’ll talk to vendors and other essential parts of the restaurant operation.

“We’ll start to release snippets of what we’re filming and doing for season two, which will be on our YouTube channel and shared on social media,” he said. ” It will include partners like US Foods, who, if you noticed, were mentioned frequently in ‘The Bear.’ You’ll see a lot of shout-outs to them about how they came in and helped us out during some tough times and why we switched over to them. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

San Pedro Fish Market talks Fish Fridays for Lent and ‘Kings of Fi$h’ reality show Orange County Register

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San Pedro Fish Market talks Fish Fridays for Lent and ‘Kings of Fi$h’ reality show

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