Ventura Harbor is one of Ventura City’s centers; it serves as a hotspot for locals and tourists to visit restaurants, browse through the various stores and look over the distant Channel Islands at sunset. However, one lesser-known storefront only appears before the sun rises. From six to 10 a.m. on Saturday mornings, the Ventura Fish Market opens to the public, offering locally caught seafood from the California coast.
Before the sun rises, local fishermen from around Ventura County gather beside the Ventura Harbor Boatyard. They fill ice chests with freshly caught, local seafood, offering their catch to the public. While the larger fish industry avoids working with these fishermen, many customers prefer the locally caught seafood to anything you could find in a supermarket.
The bond between the fisherman and their customer is still vital to many. Fish markets such as this one rely on local participation and exposure to the public, since most larger companies won’t take their product.
“I like to think of my community as my extended family. My customers – some of them – have become my extended family,” Katy Bordovski, a local fishery owner, said…