A fire ripped through an iconic boat shack in Marin County on Sunday, according to authorities.

The picturesque boat shack at Nick’s Cove Restaurant and Cottages appears in a photo from 2014. The building was destroyed by fire on Jan. 7, 2024. (Robert MacDonald/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND)

Just before 5 p.m., Marin County Fire dispatch received a report of a structure fire in the 23000 block of Shoreline Highway in Marshall. Units responded and found a fully engulfed boat shack at the end of the pier, which is owned and managed by Nick’s Cove restaurant.

No one was inside the shack at the time and the fire was extinguished by 5:30 p.m., county fire said. The cause of the fire was still under investigation.

The restaurant was not affected by the fire and remains open along with its garden and cottages, according to the owners. It was not yet known if the boat house will be rebuilt or the extent of damage to the pier.

Multiple agencies helped with the blaze, including Sonoma County Fire, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Tomales Volunteer Fire Company.

Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.