{"id":220087,"date":"2026-01-04T14:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T14:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/220087\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T14:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T14:54:14","slug":"his-restaurant-is-gone-but-his-mission-to-help-fishermen-is-just-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/220087\/","title":{"rendered":"His restaurant is gone. But his mission to help fishermen is just beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

In October 2024, Peter Hemsley closed his 19-month-old, Michelin-starred seafood restaurant Aphotic in a huff. Among his unforgettable parting words<\/a>: \u201cDon\u2019t invest in SF, because you won\u2019t make it.\u201d Yet even before the closure made headlines, the chef and his wife, Marie, had quietly been building something more positive than provocative: a private foundation designed to support the commercial fishermen upon whom Aphotic had relied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seed of this idea came because I was going out to the ports all over California and speaking to fishermen of all sorts,\u201d says Hemsley. \u201cAnd I was hearing two messages loud and clear: Oceans are messed up, and California and federal regulations hamstring our capacity to fish in a dangerous and costly business.\u201d Those frustrations, he says, are pushing legacy fishermen out of the industry, while their children are increasingly unwilling to take on a profession defined by rising costs and dwindling stability.<\/p>\n

In January, the Hemsleys launched the Euphotic Foundation (opens in new tab)<\/a>, a private fund designed to help independent commercial fishermen by offering small but significant grants of up to $10,000 to offset the costs of everything from new equipment to fuel. Marie oversees the day\u2011to\u2011day operations \u2014 site visits, applications, financial reviews \u2014 often driving to coastal towns with spotty reception to meet fishermen on the docks. She has learned that a boat motor can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. \u201cA lot of these guys have to piece it together with different kinds of financing from loans at a high interest rate,\u201d Peter says. \u201cThey\u2019ve been loaned to death.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AWorking on crab pots.\"ABuoys hanging at Pier 45.\"ThreeMatthew Juanes\u2019 boat.<\/p>\n

The foundation\u2019s launch proved timely \u2014 especially for California crabbers. For the eighth year in a row, the winter crab season was delayed, ensuring that many fishermen were without income again during the holidays. (Pending approval from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Dungeness season will open this month.) Many had already suffered through a limited salmon season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dungeness season, once a reliable kickoff to lucrative holiday traditions, has been delayed mainly because of whales becoming entangled in crabbers\u2019 lines. While major seafood companies can absorb these disruptions, independent fishers have struggled with little state or federal help. <\/p>\n

The latest innovation meant to reduce whale deaths \u2014 pop-up fishing gear, line-less traps that stay submerged until activated \u2014 offers a potential win-win: fewer closures and far fewer entanglements during high-risk months. But the technology, which is still in its testing phase, comes with a prohibitive price tag, which is where Euphotic is stepping in.<\/p>\n

\"ABrand Little of the Little Fish Company.<\/p>\n

Brand Little has been one of its grant recipients. The SF-based fisherman and owner of the Little Fish Company used money he received from Euphotic to subsidize the experimental gear. \u201cEuphotic is really pro\u2011fisherman,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re one of the only organizations I\u2019ve heard of doing this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matt Juanes \u2014 another local who has been fishing full time for 12 years \u2014 invested more than $20,000 to convert to the pop-up gear. But then he heard about Euphotic\u2019s grants, applied, and received $10,000 to go toward the gear retroactively. \u201cMy wife and I thought it was fake at first. A grant for fishermen? That is nuts,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are agricultural grants for the farmers, but not us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AMarie and Peter Hemsley launched the Euphotic Foundation to help fishermen.<\/p>\n

Word of the foundation has spread beyond the docks. Francine Kershaw, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, got wind of this rare foundation. \u201cEuphotic is the only California-based group I know of that directly funds commercial fishermen\u2019s gear purchases,\u201d she says. Kershaw contacted the Hemsleys to see if they might work in tandem with the NRDC to help crabbers with the pop-up traps. She says the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Fish and Game Commission are moving toward authorizing the gear for official commercial use for the 2026 spring Dungeness season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If names can manifest intention, the foundation carries its own lesson. Whereas Aphotic, which means \u201cwithout light,\u201d was a nod to the ocean\u2019s darkest depths, Euphotic refers to the ocean\u2019s upper layer, where the sun begins to break through. \u201cFishers don\u2019t feel a lot of love from the cities where they dock. It\u2019s like David against Goliath to them. American consumers don\u2019t have a sense of their struggles,\u201d Marie says. The Hemsleys hope to offer some measure of relief. As Peter says, \u201cWe just want to provide a hopeful light for these fishermen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In October 2024, Peter Hemsley closed his 19-month-old, Michelin-starred seafood restaurant Aphotic in a huff. Among his unforgettable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[41038,146,85,46,55332],"class_list":["post-220087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-chefs","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nonprofits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}