The Craft House story continues with BuyCatch, a collaboration between Blake Mellgren and Harbor Fish Company’s Ryan Troli that is connecting Dana Point’s fishing community with the people who want to eat its catch.
DANA POINT—The name pretty much explains the deal.
BuyCatch: You Buy What We Catch.
There is no promise that the same fish will be waiting in the case every Saturday. In fact, that would defeat the purpose.
Commercial fisherman Ryan Troli catches what Southern California waters provide. Chef Blake Mellgren figures out what to do with it. On Saturday morning, Dana Point gets a chance to buy it.
The weekly fish market, launched June 6 and hosted at Craft House, was created by Mellgren and Troli, owner of Harbor Fish Company, but the idea had been swimming around long before the first piece of fish went into the case.
“Ryan and I had been talking about doing some sort of market since before COVID,” Mellgren said. “It was always something that we thought the community needed in Dana Point.”
At the time, however, both were occupied building their respective businesses. Troli was growing his collective of fishermen and supplying restaurants through Harbor Fish Company, while Mellgren was focused on Craft House.
About two years ago, Mellgren said, their conversations became more serious. By the beginning of 2026, Troli felt Harbor Fish Company had developed the network necessary to make the market possible. The partners then waited for peak fishing season to give the concept the strongest possible start.
“In late April, we decided to launch it on June 6,” Mellgren said. “Coincidentally, Jon’s announced their closure right as we picked the launch date, so their departure lined up serendipitously with our launch.”
The closure of longtime Jon’s Fish Market amid the Dana Point Harbor revitalization nevertheless made the need for local seafood access particularly visible. For a harbor town with deep recreational and commercial fishing roots, BuyCatch offered another connection between the local catch and the people living nearby.
Friday’s Catch, Saturday’s Market: BuyCatch Market Finds Its Place in Dana Point
BuyCatch brings together two sides of Dana Point’s local food and fishing community. The market is a collaboration between Blake Mellgren, chef and owner of Craft House, and Ryan Troli, a local commercial fisherman and owner of Harbor Fish Company. Troli and the fishermen he works with provide the locally caught seafood, while Mellgren takes part of that catch into the kitchen, turning it into prepared offerings such as poke and ceviche.
Together, they have built a market around a simple idea: sell what Southern California waters are providing right now. That means BuyCatch’s selection is intentionally dictated by the ocean rather than a predetermined seafood case.
The catch generally comes in Friday, and BuyCatch opens Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Craft House, or until the supply is gone.
That last part has proven relevant.
The first market drew a strong response, and its first week was a hit— then, the second sold out again. By week three, BuyCatch had expanded beyond Mellgren’s prepared poke and ceviche to include portioned fresh fillets for customers who wanted to take the local catch home and cook it themselves.
For Mellgren and Troli, those Saturdays are also serving as a test of whether Dana Point could support something more permanent.
“The current Saturday market is really a product test for us to see if this is something that the community is willing to get behind so that we can expand it into something that is a permanent fixture in Dana Point,” Mellgren said.
So far, he said, the response has been encouraging.
“We are currently in the field-of-dreams phase of what we plan to do,” Mellgren said. “We have built it, and the community is coming out to support it. If we keep it up like this, we will go from playing in the cornfields to playing in a stadium soon.”
What appears in the market each week depends heavily on what Troli and the fishermen working with Harbor Fish Company can catch.
A recent Saturday, for example, brought local bluefin tuna into the market. Mellgren transformed part of the catch into poke with tamari, scallion, sweet onion, seaweed, Hawaiian red lava salt and sesame oil.
Another preparation took the same bluefin in a spicier direction with sriracha aioli, Hatch chile, scallion, sesame oil, tamari and avocado. Customers could pair the poke with sticky rice or wonton chips.
Alongside the prepared food were fresh yellowtail and bluefin fillets sold by the pound.
The next Saturday could be different.
And that is precisely what makes BuyCatch unusual. Instead of ordering seafood to satisfy a fixed menu, the market works in reverse. The catch determines what goes into the case.
Right Market, Remarkable Fishing Year
BuyCatch also happened to launch during an exceptional period for Southern California fishing.
Warm water and favorable offshore conditions have brought anglers and commercial fishermen opportunities for a variety of prized species, with bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna and yellowtail among the fish appearing in Southern California waters this season. #ElNiño2026, am I right?
For a business whose inventory begins with what comes across the rail, an active fishing year creates plenty of possibilities.
California salmon provided perhaps the best example.
The 2026 season marked the return of limited California commercial ocean salmon fishing for the first time since 2022, following three consecutive years of statewide commercial closures.
When fresh salmon eventually reached BuyCatch, Dana Point customers did not need much convincing.
Mellgren does not personally rank salmon among his favorite fish, but the market’s customers apparently felt differently. Fresh salmon fillets and salmon poke were quickly cleared from the display.
Arriving shortly after opening was no guarantee of getting any. Seven minutes, as I discovered firsthand, was already be seven minutes too late.
The demand illustrates part of what BuyCatch can offer when conditions cooperate: seafood that is not merely described as fresh but that is tied directly to fishing taking place off California’s coast.
There is also an educational component in allowing customers to see that availability change. Wild seafood is seasonal. Fisheries open and close. Ocean conditions change. Different species move into and out of range, and commercial fishermen cannot simply request that the Pacific provide the same inventory every week.
The yellowtail that were there yesterday are not promised to still be there today. They have tails, they swim away.
But BuyCatch makes that variability part of the experience rather than something to disguise.
From Fisherman to Chef to Community
The relationship behind BuyCatch actually stretches back about as far as the businesses themselves.
“When Craft House and Harbor Fish Co. started 10 years ago, Ryan and I were both in our mid-20s and shared the same ideas about seafood,” Mellgren said.
“We live in a beach town that has a harbor, so why are we sourcing fish from all over the world when there is amazing product right out our back door?”
An opening chef at Craft House had previously purchased fish from one of Troli’s fishermen, which eventually led to a meeting between Mellgren and Troli. What followed, Mellgren estimated, has been thousands, and likely tens of thousands, of pounds of local seafood passing through the relationship.
That history now forms the foundation of BuyCatch, where the same quality of seafood previously supplied to a restaurant kitchen is available directly to the public.
For Mellgren, working directly with fishermen also provides something a conventional seafood supply chain cannot always offer: detailed knowledge of the catch.
He became interested in listing information about the fisherman, vessel, fishing gear and location after seeing a similar approach at Mama’s Fish House in Maui. Troli, he said, shared his commitment to providing that level of traceability and quality.
The location details eventually had to become a little less specific after locals began borrowing their fishing numbers. And if you are a fisherman, you probably know exactly how that goes. Some spots are better left a little vague. Still, the principle behind the transparency remains.
More importantly, Mellgren said, shortening the supply chain can make a noticeable difference in freshness.
“If you are getting fish from a supplier, the boat was out for three to seven days to catch the fish, then it’s shipped to intermediaries before it even arrives in the kitchen,” Mellgren said. By comparison, working directly with Troli can mean receiving fish almost immediately after it reaches the dock.
One halibut demonstrated the difference particularly well. After the kitchen had sold through its previous supply, Troli brought in a fish caught that day.
“I went to break down the fish, and it nearly flopped off my cutting board; it was so fresh,” Mellgren said. “I truly wish that story were hyperbole; instead, it’s 100% fact.”
That direct relationship is now at the center of BuyCatch. Troli and Harbor Fish Company provide the connection to the fishermen and the catch, while Mellgren brings the culinary component, and in turn, customers can choose prepared seafood or, when available, fresh fillets to take home.
Something New During a Changing Time
BuyCatch’s arrival is particularly notable because of what was happening in Dana Point Harbor at the time. Longtime harbor fixture Jon’s Fish Market closed amid the ongoing revitalization, leaving Dana Point without a seafood market that generations of locals and visitors had come to know.
The closure came as the harbor was already undergoing significant change, bringing excitement about the waterfront’s future alongside difficult goodbyes to familiar businesses. Mellgren said he and Troli had hoped the redevelopment would also create more opportunities for the commercial fishermen who call Dana Point Harbor home.
They looked to models such as Newport Beach’s Dory Fishing Fleet and San Diego’s Tuna Harbor Dockside Market, where commercial fishermen have a visible outlet for connecting their catch directly with the public.
When they did not see something similar taking shape in Dana Point, Mellgren said they saw an opportunity to help fill that gap themselves.
“We felt that it was our time to really step up and provide an outlet for the locals and fishermen of Dana Point to have a place to be able to buy the best seafood our local fishery had to offer,” Mellgren said.
BuyCatch is not Jon’s Fish Market, nor is Mellgren and Troli’s goal to recreate what the longtime harbor business provided. Instead, they’re testing a different model built around an idea that makes plenty of sense in a fishing town: when local fishermen are bringing quality fish across the rail, the people who live here should have a way to buy it.
For now, that happens for three hours every Saturday, assuming the fish lasts that long.
Mellgren’s “Field of Dreams” analogy makes it clear that he and Troli see potential for BuyCatch to grow well beyond its current Saturday setup. For now, they’re letting the community decide just how far it can go.
And so far, Dana Point keeps showing up.
If that support continues, BuyCatch could eventually become the permanent local fish market Mellgren and Troli envisioned. Until then, the concept remains fittingly simple: they catch it, you buy it.
Exactly what “it” will be each Saturday is up to the Pacific.
There may be yellowtail, bluefin, salmon or something completely unexpected. There may be fresh fillets to take home or a new preparation from Mellgren built around whatever came across the rail that week. What there will not be is a guarantee about exactly what the ocean will provide.
For BuyCatch, that is not a problem with the business model.
