2025 Mendocino Coast Purple Urchin Festival

Join us June 13th to 15th, 2025 as we celebrate these delicious, invasive, spiky creatures.

The 4th Annual Urchin/Uni Festival will be filled with some amazing educational events and tasty treats!

Join chefs, educators, experts and adventurous palates for all things purple sea urchin this summer as sustainability takes center stage. Long a major producer of sea urchin in the United States, Mendocino County celebrates this delicacy and its intertwined ocean existence with a host of events in coastal Fort Bragg including a Sake And uni seminar, ocean demonstration on harvesting, cleaning and opening fresh purple urchin and special lodging packages.

Educational Talk

June 14th, 11am
at Van Damme State Beach

Join us down at this beach – where kelp forests are slowly making a comeback, as is the local abalone population – for an educational talk about urchin, including demos on how to open urchin to get your own uni.

The talk and demo is free for all – and with a $10 demo you can try out your new skills and smash your own urchin to get to the uni yourself.

Urchin University

Saturday, June 14, 5:30pm
at Little River Inneck

Get schooled on everything uni, including opening your own! Nibble on uni bites, sip sake and get your hands dirty during demos of urchin preparation, sashimi slicing and other tidal hacks and delicacies. Proceeds benefit MendoParks

$65

Life Stages of the Purple Sea Urchin

Friday, June 13, 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Noyo Center for Marine Science
Fort Bragg, CA

Kick off urchin fest celebrations with the Noyo Center, and learn about the beginning life stages of purple sea urchins.

Noyo Center researcher Lauren Nutt displays the stunning microscopic life stages of purple sea urchins. Learn how purple sea urchins reproduce, develop, and gain an understanding of how these resilient creatures have created a purple explosion along the California coast.

California State Parks Week

June 12-16

Celebrate California State Parks Week at any of the beautiful state parks on the Mendocino Coast. California parks park units preserve and protect the best of our state’s natural and cultural history, from natural features and ecosystems to historic structures and cultural resources. This year’s tagline is “This is where you live,” and you can explore all the scheduled events at castateparksweek.org.

Friday, June 14 TENTATIVE

SCP Hotels hosts a campfire on Van Damme Beach with Ranger talk and small bites prepared fireside

Open House at the Urchin Ranch

June 15, 11am – 3pm

Visit the Noyo Center Marine Field Station in Noyo Harbor and learn about the organization’s land-based urchin aquaculture system, or urchin ranch. While you are there, see the underwater photo and video installation featuring the work of Abbey Dias and Patrick Webster, taste wild and farmed uni, and learn more about the fascinating purple urchin from Noyo Center educators.

Donations welcome.
Noyo Center Marine Field Station
32430 N. Harbor Drive
Fort Bragg, CA

Lodging

A variety of hotels are offering package deals, uni menus, sea foraging and weekend value pricing including, Noyo Harbor Inn, Little River Inn, Nicholson House and more

https://www.visitmendocino.com/deals-and-specials

Uni Adventures

A variety of Mendocino restaurants are offering special Uni menus during this timeframe, from Uni Baked Oysters to Salmon with Champagne and Sea Urchin Beurre Blanc; various prices. Pull a seat up at Sacred Rock, KW Saltwater Café, Noyo Harbor Inn, Izakaya Gama, SOBO and more.

Walking Tour of Noyo Harbor

Sunday, June 15, 2025
11:00 AM 12:00 PM
Noyo Harbor High Dock

Join the Noyo Harbor staff for a walking tour of Noyo Harbor. Learn about the different fisheries and vessels that operate out of the marina and how a healthy kelp forest relates to healthy fisheries and thus healthy communities.