New Fish Market Serving Up Fresh Catches

In the far corner of the newly opened Oakland Giant Farmer’s Market, Salt Shores is taking a (literally) fresh approach to its seafood.

Doug Hwang, the Salt Shores owner, has leased the corner space from the market since it’s June grand opening, but his involvement in the fish industry is lifelong.

“My family’s been in fish for 30 years,” he said. “I spent summers, vacations helping my parents.”

Hwang grew up in Westchester County, NY, and worked in his family’s Bronx-based market during his youth. His father had come to the U.S. as a Korean immigrant, cleaning fish for a New York market before opening his own business.

After his father leased a space at the Hackensack sister store of the Oakland market, Hwang followed suit, jumping back into the business from a career as an art director, working on commercial shoots.

For the small Oakland operation, where Hwang works alongside five employees, the proprietor treks back to the Bronx daily to make his picks at the Fulton Fish Market.

He doesn’t care for imports.

“I think we have better fish on the east coast anyway,” Hwang said. And by working with small regional fishers—lobsters from Maine, oysters from Long Island—he can keep an eye on quality, he says.

“If I source that way, I know exactly where it’s coming from,” he said.

One of the things he focuses on is “feel good fish,” as he calls it: seafood that’s fished sustainably, off single hook lines rather than large, bottom-scraping nets that can overfish the sea’s population and unbalance the ecosystem.

Ethics points aside, he said, the scrutiny means that the product he selects isn’t mixed with undesirable stray catches, and that customers are getting the best catches.