After a fair amount of nail-biting about whether the season would open on time, commercial fishers brought their first haul of Dungeness crab to Bay Area docks Tuesday afternoon.

The shellfish should arrive in restaurants as early as Wednesday and in fish markets later this week, meaning Bay Area families can return to the tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving with platters of freshly steamed and cracked Dungeness crab.

Fishers and processors negotiated a price of $3 per pound to fishers, on top of which processors add delivery and labor costs. The best retail prices are expected to be $5.99 to $6.99 per pound, according to Mike Lucas, president of North Coast Fisheries, a shellfish processor and distributor in Santa Rosa.

Many fishers are predicting that the crabs will be large this year, since fewer were taken in last year’s small harvest.

“The best time to get them is right when they come out of the water,” said Rowan MacNiven, co-owner of Woodhouse Fish Co. in San Francisco. On Wednesday, the two Woodhouse locations will return to offering their “Dungeness Madness” special: a whole steamed crab with potatoes, greens and garlic bread for $20 (the price will likely rise over the weekend).

“People wait for the crab. There’s an underground culture,” he said.

After last year’s season was delayed by months because of a toxic algal bloom, the start of this year’s brought a sense of relief to those in the fishing industry.

“We’re feeling a lot better that we’re able to open on time. We’re hopeful,” said Lucas.

Crab boats began dropping their pots in the ocean Monday and were allowed to start pulling them up at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

By the time the first boats returned Tuesday afternoon, most fishermen were optimistic with what they deemed a decent first day.

“There’s some pretty good quality,” said Nick Gunnarsson, a deckhand on the New Rayann, while unloading 8,000 pounds of fresh crab on Pier 45.

If most boats come back with a good haul, Lucas and other processors should have crab in local markets by Thursday. At Sun Fat Seafood, a market in the Mission District, employee Hoa Kuu said he expects to have local crab in the store this weekend.

There is one limit on the fishery, though, as a 60-mile stretch of the coast between Point Reyes and the Mendocino-Sonoma county line is not yet open because of sporadic domoic acid showing up in tests conducted by the California Department of Public Health. However, recent tests have shown the domoic acid levels to be dropping, except in one part of Bodega Bay.

The commercial fishery north of the Mendocino County line is due to open Dec. 1, and Lucas said there are high hopes for what they’ll find there.

“These guys are talking about a big bonanza of crab up north,” he said.

Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan