Most seafood travels great distances on the path from water to table.

To cut one leg of the journey, head north on Elston Avenue and grab a seat at Wellfleet, the new café inside The Fish Guy Market.

Owner Bill Dugan has decades of seafood experience. (For a story to accompany your lunch, ask him about his friendship, as a teenage fishmonger in San Francisco, with James Beard.) He first began Wellfleet as a weekly supper club inside his 15-year-old Mayfair shop, which has long served a handful of on-the-go eats.

After a thorough renovation of the space, Wellfleet is now a fixture, open daily for lunch with four wooden tables and counter seating. New England-style clam chowder ($5) is a menu constant, as is the lobster roll ($20). For those in the mayo-laden camp, it's a standout.

A pizza oven produces pies topped with surf clams ($16), tomatoes and house-smoked mozzarella ($13), or house-cured salmon ($16) draped over a layer of crème fraîche and scattered with dill. Other menu items change with the catch; live Nantucket bay scallops, steamed in their shells, are a current offering ($14).

After lunch, mine the case packed with razor clams, tilefish, Chincoteague oysters and more for dinner inspiration.

Wellfleet at The Fish Guy Market, 4423 N. Elston Ave.; 773-283-7400 or fishguy.com