Cook’s Seafood closed both its Menlo Park restaurant and its Pleasanton location on Wednesday, Oct. 28, ending a 98-year run in Menlo Park. A notice posted at the Menlo Park storefront described a difficult year for restaurants and thanked customers, but did not specify a particular reason for the shutdown, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The Almanac also reported the company’s announcement that all locations had closed.
A long-running Menlo Park business
Cook’s began in 1928, founded by Bill Cook. Robert Rahe acquired the business in the 1940s, and Roy Crumrine—who had started there as a dishwasher—became its owner in 1963, according to The Almanac. At 751 El Camino Real, the Menlo Park business combined a seafood market with a sit-down restaurant, as Palo Alto Online has documented. Its offerings included familiar seafood dishes such as fish and chips and clam chowder, The Almanac reported.
The closure also ended the employment of longtime workers. The Almanac reported that counter clerk Dan Dowler had worked at Cook’s for 55 years.
A delayed expansion, then a short second chapter
The Pleasanton location was the result of a long-delayed expansion: Cook’s filed permits for the project in 2017, but the restaurant did not open until 2025, according to Pleasanton Weekly. It operated for just over a year before closing alongside the original Menlo Park business, the outlet reported in its account of the shutdown.
Local context, with limits
Cook’s closure comes amid a local economy in which food businesses account for a substantial share of activity, though countywide figures cannot explain the fate of a single restaurant. San Mateo County’s 2018 Census data—the latest year in the county’s summary—listed 2,170 accommodation and food services establishments and 41,559 employees. That category includes businesses beyond restaurants, the County of San Mateo notes.
A separate Peninsula closure offers a comparison, not an explanation: Wursthall in downtown San Mateo announced in 2025 that it would close Sept. 27. Its owners cited the concept having run its course and an unsuccessful lease agreement, Palo Alto Online reported. Those stated circumstances differ from Cook’s, whose posted notice did not identify a specific cause. The two closures do not, by themselves, establish a broader trend.
