The Tin Fish

This place was great! After reading other reviews I was happy not to see bird poop on all the tables outside. Of course there were pigeons but the tables were clean and even had sun shading umbrellas. The service cashier was polite and our food was ready quickly. We had a half order of fish and chips (3 pieces), a half order of chicken strips (3 pieces), a shrimp cocktail appetizer (6 pieces of large shrimp over ice) and the crab cake appetizer (1 large cake about 5″ diameter) and two drinks coming to a total of $ 32. This didn’t seem outrageous for this much fresh seafood. And it was all delicious. My personal favorite was the fish and chips because of the great breading that made them warm and flaky but not heavy or greasy at all, and the criscut fries they serve are seasoned perfectly. The coleslaw side has more of a vinegar based dressing, lighter on the mayo and was dressed just right. Keep in mind it is a seafood shack at the end of the pier. It’s rustic, mostly outdoor seating, with a beautiful view. Keep your expectations appropriate and you will not be disappointed with the excellent food.

Just returned to Imperial Beach. The first restaurant of choice was Tinfish. As in years past, I phoned in my order for oysters as I started up the pier. Not this year. «We no longer take orders for oysters over the phone.» What a surprise. Most other restaurants are developing apps to make orders even easier. Not this company. Nope. Walked out to the restaurant at the end of the pier placed order, waited, asked by the cook if I was upset, explained my past experience and she replied, «I’ve worked here for almost a year and don’t remember seeing you.» Oh may! Welcome back to Imperial Beach, sad how this place is changing.

Ate at this place around 3 PM on a Wednesday afternoon because we were fishing on the IB Pier and I wanted to try it out and compare it to the other newly opened Crisp Fish and Chips place in IB at 1850 Coronado Avenue. OK, now that I’ve got that done, I’ll never eat there again for several reasons. One is cost — way too expensive for what you get portion wise, IMHO. Second is portion size — SMALLISH portions. Third is taste. The onion rings were the only thing I had that tasted half-​way decent. I ordered the fish and oysters combo and paid an extra $ 4.00 for two shrimp to be added to my platter. The 4 oysters I got looked like one decent sized oyster had been cut into 4 servings, if you could call them that. The 4 fish were about 3 inches long each and didn’t have much taste at all either (the oysters were mostly breading and very little oyster and thus didn’t have much oyster taste at all). The coleslaw wasn’t even as good as KFC’s in my opinion and the amount ended up being about 3 bites in total. The cross-​cut fries weren’t all that bad but they weren’t anything to write home to Mom about either. Oh well, live and learn. I wanted to TRY it and after spending around $ 38.00 for my platter and my buddy’s fish and chip platter, I’ve done that. Truthfully, the fish and chip place up off Coronado near 19^th street in IB is heads and tails better than The Tin Fish in all aspects (price/​portions/​taste). I’ll just have to go there from now on when I want some decent tasting seafood. I forgot to mention that the $ 2.00 each fried shrimp I had were INDEED SHRIMP and I mean SIZE WISE about as small as the oysters were. Bummer.

The Original Fish & Chips is delicious, large portions, and so fresh. The coleslaw is a vinegar-​based slaw and it was the best I’ve ever eaten.

The tin fish… At least it isn’t pollock! The tin fish is an imperial beach must. I take all my Out of town visitors here. Good enough fish tacos, big ass beers, great people watching, and you can fish. Just don’t drop your phone. Because it will go in the water. And even if you have a life proof. It’s only rated to seven feet. The end of the pier is 35+. So when you do find it, hours later it’ll be ruined

Made the order. About to pay but the old asian man working could not figure out how to use chip technology on my card. Id eat there if the guys working here knew how to use their card machine.
Get with the times please.

We went here on a Sunday afternoon. It is in a really cool location (the end of the pier at Imperial Beach) and honestly that is the coolest part about this place. The staff were friendly, the guy taking the orders was really fun and made the experience of ordering our food enjoyable. The food however, was just ok. I had the halibut and fries, the halibut was dry and there were barely any waffle fries on my plate… disappointing since I paid $ 15.95 for this ‘special’. My husband who is not a big seafood fan had the Big Fat Bacon Cheeseburger and also said that while it lived up to it’s name of being big and fat, it was just ok tasting. I wish that there was more space to sit inside and an actual view from the inside seating and I wish that there were also not so many flies in the area where you order your food. The outside seating awards you with plenty of seagulls, poop, people fishing around you and the smell of the overflowing trash can. Overall we weren’t impressed by this place unfortunately.

Ahh the good ol fashioned Tin Fish. Located in Imperial Beach at the end of the pier. The place has some fantastic sea food, always fresh but always so satisfying.
They have indoor and outdoor seating, on those breezy days I recommend indoors and on those perfect warm days I recommend indoors as well. Which is why this place only gets 3 stars. I know its located at the end of a pier on the beach and the nature should be expected. My issue is the dag gone seagulls. They will flock abundantly to your table if your outdoors and harass you as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks.
More than likely they will poop on you though. Without fail I’ve been pooped on every time I’ve eaten here.
In conclusion, the variety of seafood available here is unmatched and your doing yourself a disservice by skipping a trip to the Tin Fish if you’ve never been.
Lastly if you came out here to do some fishing instead of eating, they will sell you gear as well. Overpriced but it’ll save you a trip to the tackle shop which isn’t close.

Came to this place again. Expected the same quality, bit I was pleasantly surprised at the improvements they made. I ordered the grilled seafood combo and it’s definitely much better seasoned this time around. Hope the quality stays as it is.

First time here and the food was great. I ordered the fried calamari and my husband ordered the fried shrimp platter. It was great! And awesome view right there in the pier.

A must if your visiting imperial beach. I always like coming here for tall cold cup Samuel Adams and the onions rings. Oh yeah try the calamari. It’s a staple of imperial beach. Real good times.

Relaxed atmosphere, great fish & chips and the halibut taco was fantastic! Large amount of food for the price!!! Will be back!

If you like ok food with rather high prices and don’t mind grunge… and gull poop all over the outdoor tables? Well, then this is the place for you. The service was very good though… nice little gal took our order.
The view of the sunset is about the only thing we liked. Sad, because it could be a very cool spot.

The attraction here is not the food so much as the experience of walking the length of the Imperial Beach pier. Part of me wishes this place felt a little cleaner but I guess the location in the salt air and all of the pigeons and seagulls make it a little tough to keep it spotless. Menu… a lot of deep fried stuff and grill items. We were there on a cloudy day. On a sunny, warm day it is pleasant to sit outside and watch surfers and fishermen. We like this little place and we enjoy the food but wouldn’t consider it a healthy diet if we ate here very often.

We went to the Imperial Beach Pier last week, and hit THE TIN FISH at the very end of the pier. I had never been, but went with some locals that swore by it. During the long walk down the pier, you see locals fishing in the Pacific, some having some pretty good luck! We got to the end and to the shack that is the restaurant. We sat outside with the seagulls.
They had several options for seafood tacos. I had a fried cod taco and a calamari taco. Both were delicious and HUGE. I was expecting a street taco with a small corn tortilla — but it was on a nice sized flour tortilla. I barely finished my two. They had cheese, pico, hot sauce, cabbage, and crema. Not what I was expecting, but good none-​the-​less. The pico was exceptionally good! I left stuffed and happy!
3.5 stars!

Kudos. Nice panorama and deserves a 5 stars :)
I enjoyed my fish and chips while savouring the view.

Okay so the kid running this spot must have been there on his first day because he was a MESS! He had no idea what price items were or where on the menu they were and he kept trying to look for them and not find them. He was definitely frazzled with the long line building and other staff members had to keep checking him and telling him how to do his job — not a good sign. On top of it all he got my order wrong but I wasn’t even trying to go back and deal with the kid again. I heard other people saying he was overcharging and messing up how he charged them — so just all bad.
Onto the food. I had ordered the grilled calamari and got fried calamari. I was kind of just like whatever about it and ate it anyway. It was still fried really well and comes with some waffle fries. I got a side of the clam chowder which was really thick and piping hot. Pretty nice on such a windy day. My husband had the fish and shrimp special. He was pleasantly surprised at the size of the shrimp and the portion given. Definitely filling. Being the Baltimore boy that he is he got the crab cake as well since they advertise it as a #1 voted item by San Diego. Well San Diego, you know NOTHING About crab cakes. That thing was gross! It was like the canned tuna version of a crab cake. No lumps, god knows what was in it. Just like a fried hockey puck. GROSS on so many levels.

Latin people be warned, they don’t have limes to go in your beer.
The food was good, crispy waffle fries, savory house made hot sauce. The best thing about this place is the view! It’s way out here so it’s like you’re eating in the middle of the ocean

Visited the tin fish for lunch today with my family visiting from out of town and thoroughly enjoyed it!
We ordered the:
Fried fish burrito
Grilled Mahi taco
Shrimp quesadilla
Chicken tenders
All orders came with French fries and cole slaw. All of the orders were very good besides the chicken tenders, which were very average. The waffle cut fries with old bay seasoning are great! My mom loved her grilled Mahi taco, and said that one taco was just enough! My fiancé couldn’t stop talking about how generous the amount of fried fish meat was in his taco. Overall, great value and huge portions !

Good spot to take a walk and have some fish and chips and some beer. Likes the fish not over cooked.
Very friendly.