Printed bags for San Diego poke and seafood. Cold food, kept level.

A town that eats raw fish to go

Poke is everywhere in San Diego. There are poke counters in strip malls from Clairemont to Chula Vista, bowls sold at fish markets near the water in Point Loma, and a steady line of people grabbing ahi on the way to the beach in Pacific Beach and Encinitas. Add the shrimp cocktail stands, the sushi takeout, the grilled fish plates and the seafood boil spots, and cold seafood to go is a big part of the county's takeout.

Cold food has its own rules. It does not steam, but it sweats, it sloshes, and it has to stay cold for the ride home.

Keep the bowl flat and the sauce on the side

A poke bowl that tips loses its shoyu, its spicy mayo and half its toppings to the lid. The fix is a bag with a real floor. Ours has a square bottom, 12″ wide and 7″ deep, so bowls sit side by side and stay level.

Extra sauce, ponzu and wasabi go in small cups in the 3.5″ side gussets. Chopsticks and napkins slide down the side. Seaweed snacks or chips go on top, where nothing presses on them.

Ice, condensation and the paper bag

Cold containers sweat on a warm day, and a long walk to the sand gives them time to do it. Two easy habits help. Wipe the bottom of each bowl before it goes in, and keep loose ice or ice packs in a separate sealed bag rather than loose in the kraft bag.

The 110 GSM paper is thick enough to handle normal condensation from a few cold bowls on the way home. A bag full of melting ice is a different job, and no paper bag should be asked to do it.

Seafood boils and family trays

Not all seafood is light. A boil with crab, shrimp, corn and potatoes in a sealed tray, or a family tray of fried fish and fries, can weigh a lot. Our bag carries 22 lb with flat paper handles taped inside, so the whole order comes out the door in one bag.

Seal it with one of the 100 food tamper-evident stickers in every box. For delivery orders, that seal tells the customer nobody opened the bag on the way.

Ocean colors on kraft

Many seafood logos use blues, teals and coral. Deep navy and dark teal read well on brown kraft. Light aqua, coral and pale pink look much brighter on the white bag. Keep your shop name large, and if you use a fish, wave or hibiscus, keep its lines bold.

Fish taco shops have their own guide on our fish taco shop bags page. For everything else, see the printed kraft bags in San Diego home page or the bag size and specs.