Find Alaskan Fish in La Quinta at Haines Packing Company

The Rietze family didn’t mean to become locals. “We came down for vacation six years ago and rented an Airbnb in Palm Desert, and we loved it,” Harry Rietze recalls. “After three years, we decided the desert needed some wild Alaskan seafood. And we happen to have a fish plant in Alaska.”

He and his wife and children relocated to La Quinta, opening a store called Haines Packing Company, named after Rietze’s Alaskan hometown, where he grew up working on fishing boats. His family’s processing plant — founded by his dad and uncle in 2007 — sources all the shop’s seafood according to the state’s rigorous sustainability standards and flash-freezes it almost as soon as it comes out of the ocean. “If seafood at the grocery store is being sold as fresh, chances are it’s been on a truck or in a case for multiple days,” Rietze explains. “If you freeze it quick, it’s actually a better-quality piece of seafood.”

Home chefs rightfully visit Haines for salmon and crab, but Rietze encourages shoppers to explore the market’s potentially less familiar offerings, like sablefish. “It’s a really nice, rich, flavorful cod,” he says.