Josephson’s Smokehouse

This place would have 5 stars but the service was atrocious! The 3 girls at the counter struggle to smile, make eye contact and talk about the products. On a positive note the fish is amazing! The wine maple salmon is delicious — a must if you stop by.

Clam chowder was delicious and so was the sample of maple smoked fish. The young girl who waited on us was delightful and quite terrific. I loved the small town atmosphere and the way the smokehouse was decorated. A must go to place!

Stopping here was a great reminder of a couple things – one, when you’re meandering through small town after small town at a leisurely pace, you need to be ready to stop and explore things spontaneously all the time (this plays havoc with your estimated travel times, so be ready to go slow). Two, it’s a great reminder of how helpful Unilocal is. It just took a second to see that quite a few people rated this place highly, so, even without ever having heard of it, it was an easy choice to stop here.
They’re in one of those dockside buildings that kinda looks like a giant house, thanks to the way it was built (especially the siding and windows). You’re right by the water, with that giant rivermouth bridge looming over you in the background.
You walk up some old wooden stairs that have stood up to lots of salt air, through the rickety old door with the brass latch, and past the lady who evidently has the office right by the door of the busy smokehouse. Does she work at the smokehouse? Probably, in some officin’ kinda way. Does she get grumpy when the smokehouse has customers, stare at them scornfully, and close her door? Yes, she does – we don’t need to guess about that.
Inside, they’re mainly here to sell smoked fish out of a display case. There’s a prep kitchen next to that, and a couple tables farther down the room. You can sit and have clam chowder and a salmon burger, or whatever, and that sounded pretty good. But there was only one person working, so let’s focus on the to-​go stuff. In the way back (practically hanging over the river at the dock end of the building), there’s a little bathroom with a washer and dryer in it. Around the corner coming back the other way, there’s a processing area where they package (and maybe even smoke) the fishes. It’s all in house.
There are a few different smoked fishes, and I will happily vouch for the sturgeon and halibut – they’re delectable smoked white fish. The Hot Sweet smoked salmon was maybe my favorite, but they are mainly known for the Wine and Maple smoked salmon. Those two were in a dead even heat, for my money. Haven’t tried the lox yet, but grabbed some of that, too.
The staff here are nice – she was friendly and cheerful, and knew all about all their products. She did seem to be about ready to head home and savor a dab, but we’ve all had long days at work. Most helpfully of all from her, she pointed out that they ship, which I hadn’t figured out by looking at the display case. They take orders online and over the phone. I’ll probably be hitting them up for more fish, though I’d almost rather make the (very scenic and beautiful) drive to do it, rather than having it shipped.

The grumpy girls at the front counter killed my smoked oyster dreams. They only had ½ pounds when I wanted a ¼ pound. I know they could have opened a ½ pound and broke it up. They have their own vacuum sealer to seal it back up and they do all their own processing there. Guess I’m not an important customer to put forth the effort or friendliness. It’s okay, the smoked salmon was the best I’ve ever had.

My wife and i split a 16 oz clam chowder and a bagel with salmon and cream cheese. We didnt even finish the bagel that was fully loaded with some of the best smoked salmon ive had (wine maple) and we didnt finish the chowder either because it was so much. The chowder was nice and thick with plenty of clams potatoes and i believe there was salmon in there as well. I would give 5 star but the customer service wasnt up to par. Not bad by any means but not 5 star worthy either.

Thanks Unilocal.We were in town and stopped by. Sampled several different salmon flavors. I really liked the sweet hot salmon. They have the best product of all. They have it figured out. The scallops are awesome. Lightly smoked yet the flavor of the scallop still comes through. The oysters are the best smoked oysters I have ever had. Everything we sampled was above and beyond anything I have ever tried. And talk about hospitality. The lady that waited on us was as sweet as southern pecan pie. I have to agree with another Unilocaler. Find a flavor you like, buy a chunk, go next door and get a drink and chips, go sit on the river walk and enjoy. Finally, I’ve tried smoked salmon from all around, some I couldn’t finish, this is by far the best I have ever had. It may be that it’s sooooo fresh.

On a day trip from Portland to Fort Clatsop National Memorial, we stopped here to buy our picnic. The sandwiches were amazing. They put ALOT of smoked salmon on their sandwiches. They were absolutely memorable.
Get sandwiches from here, then go to the little mini-​mart next door for sodas and chips. A quick picnic worth raving about.

Wow girl at the counter is so unfriendly and curt. Tried to figure out if I could take frozen lox on airplane and felt rushed, like I was wasting her time.
Just settled in salmon jerky and it was toooo salty I had to throw away a $ 10 bag
Cold smoked salmon was good. We tried at the Cannery Hotel happy hr. But really overpriced.

You could go broke at this place, but you’d have your fill of excellent smoked fish. I was curious to try the smoked sturgeon, and it was delicious. A little drier than the salmon, but very tasty. The basil salmon and the maple glazed salmon were outstanding. We picked up a hunk of local cheese (on our way to Tillamook, no less), but they only had Ritz crackers. When you drop this much money on smoked fish, the crackers have to be a step up above a Ritz. They have a few tables and serve chowder, but we didn’t try that. After our visit to Tillamook Cheese Factory, we watched the sunset at Ft. Stevens while chowing down on smoked salmon, sturgeon, cheese and crackers. A perfect way to end the day.

The best smoked fish I have ever eaten, bar none. We drive up from Portland just for the Wine Maple Salmon, the Garlic Pepper Salmon, and the smoked oysters. So. Damn. Good.

Really love the selection of smoked local water fish in this counter.

The smoked salmon is awesome, no doubt!!! The $ 10 for crackers, not so much.
The issue I have is with the clam chowder. I’m sorry, but this is not clam chowder, it’s potato paste. The flavor of it is not bad though. They smashed up a bunch of potatoes, mixed in some clams and whala, there you have it. haha.
I took it home and added some milk, cream, butter and spices. Much better…

We just don’t get the 4 and 5 star reviews — to our taste buds, the smoked salmon was awful.
We love smoked salmon, and get it wherever and whenever we can. We read all the reviews about Josephson’s, and were very much looking forward to trying it.
Boy were we disappointed.
We only had the smoked salmon form there so can’t comment on any of their other offerings. But, to us, it just doesn’t live up to the hype. It wasn’t «bad» in a terrible way, but to us it was bland and flavorless. It also tasted «old» (not spoiled, just not fresh). It was tough, chewy, and just didn’t have anywhere near the rich, complex flavors of almost every other smoked salmon we’ve had. The stuff we buy at Fred Meyers is far better than this.
Combine what to us was bland and flavorless salmon with heart-​stoppingly high prices of $ 38 a pound? Are they kidding?!? That’s what smoked salmon costs at the best places in New York, like Barney Greengrass. We just don’t see any reason to spend any money there. Or even to eat it for free — we stayed at the Cannery Pier Hotel, where they offer free Josephson’s smoked salmon for happy hour. After trying it once, we didn’t even both going back to have more for free.

This place. This place is the bomb dot com. Absolutely some of the best smoked salmon I’ve ever eaten, even if I did have to pay a pretty penny for it.
During a brief visit to Astoria I saw how highly rated Josephson’s was so I stopped by late in the afternoon and ordered both the famous wine maple glaze and Chinook. They were ASTOUNDING. Both were tender and packed with smoky/​wine-​maple-​y goodness, the wine maple not overpoweringly sweet, and the Chinook more ‘normal’ but still with deep flavor.
We polished those off embarrassingly quickly and 30 minutes before they closed, returned to buy way more: ¼lb each of the wine maple, sockeye, and sweet basil salmon, and smoked scallops. Wine maple was definitely the standout out of everything we tried, the sockeye was pretty good and had a fishier taste, the sweet basil was eh, and the scallops were a bit salty but still great if you drink water afterwards.
The products are all of excellent quality and the prices reflect that — around $ 10 for each ¼ lb, and $ 35 – 40 per lb. In addition to salmon, there are smoked tuna, sturgeon, halibut, cod, and trout, and you can buy a wide variety of jerkies and canned goods as well. For whatever reason, the crackers here are exorbitantly expensive… I’m talking one box of your typical water crackers costs almost $ 5 :(
Definitely hoping I get a chance to come back to the Portland/​Astoria area to visit Josephson’s again.
Tip: take your splendid salmon to eat on one of the many docks nearby!

inquired as to the origin of the fish… was told it was all Atlantic salmon. why would you use that when there’s so much local salmon available? (other than cost saving) except for the seasonal copper River salmon which was excellent, but at $ 50/​lb, quite a stretch.
the flavor of the rest was very good, but it sure felt like they were trying to push it with the fish quality and pricing. next time I’m hoping there’s a better alternative…

Service was wonderful here.
The only thing is that there are not much choices to choose from. We ordered the clam chowder bread bowl and the clam chowder was thick (like a potato base — almost like mashed potato) but had lots of clams in it. Also, the salmon burger which was tasty on rye bread.
However, I will def. be back. I always give the mom n’ pop stores more of a chance to get things right. And if they do it well the first time, there’s no doubt they are great!

I LOVE Josephson’s! I constantly crave the Salmon Bagel with Wine Maple Smoked Salmon. The store is simple and exactly what I expect from a fish market. They do a few things and they do it well which is perfect. Clam Chowder is a must. Just go and eat and watch the rain and be happy. You won’t regret it.

Smoked Chinook Salmon, the perfect amount of smoke, very moist & tasty. The young girls behind the counter were very courteous & friendly.

One of the best smoked salmon I’ve ever tasted. So MOIST and very good flavor, I don’t know how they do it. Wished I bought more, half a pound only lasted 30 mins with my friends. Unfortunately, they know how good it is and priced it accordingly at $ 38/​lb.
They have many different varieties and you can taste pretty much all of them if you wish, which I encourage you to!

You would think this area would have great smoked seafood, but it is pretty hard to find. So I was thrilled with Josephson’s, which has a retail counter where you can buy various types of smoked fish and jerky, and a small lunch spot where they serve the same smoked fish in sandwiches. Chowder was also good.
Five stars are strictly for the food for the ambiance is zero. But it doesn’t matter — the food is what Josephson’s is all about.