Family History
The history of the Pompei family has always been associated with the sea and fishing. The family hails from San Benedetto d'Ancona in Italy, a seaport community on the Adriatic Coast famed for its beautiful beaches and fishing industry.
In 1913, Frank's father Mario, at the age of 16, arrived in San Francisco, determined to make his mark in the new world, and at that tender age found employment as a boss fisherman on a trawler. During the next 30 years as a fisherman, he yearly made trips of three to four months to fish salmon in Alaska, traveling there first by sailship, then steamship, and amongst the first of the Pacific fisherman to go by plane to the region for the salmon season. His wife Lucy was one of those charming Italian women completely dedicated to her family.
Frank, like his father, had a deep passion for the sea and a love for Fisherman's Wharf. As a boy he fished with his dad and worked after school selling clams, crabs, and sea food cocktails from a number of the major fish depots. Like his father and many others, he helped develop Fisherman's Wharf into one of the most colorful and pleasant places for any tourist or native to go for lunch or dinner, no matter what the weather or time of year.
Today, the family tradition continues, as Frank and Marian's daughter Nancy and her husband Gayne, their grandchildren Tom and Amy along with Amy's husband Vincenzo, provide visitors with the greatness San Francisco has come to know, as Pompei's Grotto on Fisherman's Wharf.
