The fallout is only getting worse for a trendy Venice seafood restaurant that stunned diners this week by publicly admitting it had lied about where its fish came from.
Just days after California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials announced that operators of Dudley Market had agreed to pay more than $100,000 in penalties and publicly acknowledge years of illegal fishing related violations, angry customers took to Yelp to unleash a wave of scathing reviews.
“I will not support a restaurant touting fresh legally sourced seafood when it’s a complete lie,” one commentator wrote on the platform. “I didn’t want to put any stars but you have to!”
“Lying and deceitful owner who thinks rules don’t apply to him,” another one-star reviewer added. “How shameful fishing protected wildlife.”
The backlash came after authorities revealed the restaurant spent 2020 and 2021 illegally poaching rockfish from highly restricted marine protected areas, using unlicensed commercial vessels, and illegally buying and selling sport-caught bluefin tuna and yellowtail.
“DO NOT GO HERE! THEY ARE NOT ETHICAL,” one angry Yelper wrote, saying they could not support a restaurant that built its brand around sustainability while engaging in illegal fishing practices.
“The prices are absolutely shocking given the truth that they lied about how they’ve sourced their food,” one person argued.
Dudley Market marketed itself as a hyper-local operation where much of the fish was caught by the restaurant’s own team — which has only spurred the ire of ethics-conscious eaters.
“Violating fishing regulations that are intended to preserve Marine Protected Areas threatens the environment and the fishing industry that depends on sustainable fish stocks in the future,” said Santa Barbara County District Attorney John Savrnoch.
Officials said the managers of Dudley Market, Conner Mitchell and Taylor Grant, used a commercial fishing vessel to illegally “catch fish for the restaurant.”
The two operated the market through Dudley Street Oyster Bar and Shark Bite Fish Co., while Cody Martin operated a commercial fishing vessel that “supplied fish to Dudley Market.”
Mitchell said the violations were handled and they have been in good standing with the state authorities ever since.
“When those issues were brought to our attention, we worked cooperatively with regulators, corrected them promptly, and have operated in compliance ever since,” Mitchell told The Post.
“We’re proud of the fishing and restaurant business we’ve built, the transparency we bring to our work, and the fact that we’ve spent the last five years doing things the right way.”
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