A family-owned craft brewery is joining the fashionable mix of locally grown bakeries, bars and bowling alleys in and around one of San Francisco's hottest tech neighborhoods, defying the nationwide beer downturn of the last few years.
San Francisco Brewing Co. is planning a splashy opening this week for its second location in Mission Bay, once an abandoned train yard that in the 21st century has morphed into a popular spot for real estate, home to Visa, OpenAI, Nvidia, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and Uber.
The corporate headquarters and luxury apartment buildings have in turn drawn Bay Area favorites like Tuscan eatery Via Aurelia and Arsicault Bakery, known for its flaky croissants and long lines.
Now San Francisco Brewing Co., which operates a bar and restaurant in the popular waterfront tourist attraction of Ghirardelli Square, is opening an outpost on the ground floor of a Kilroy Realty-owned office building at 100 Hooper St. near Chase Center that houses the prominent software company Adobe.
The new brewery and restaurant are opening in an 18,680-square-foot space that was formerly occupied by Seven Stills Brewery — a brewery, distillery, cocktail bar and restaurant that closed in late 2022 after less than three years in business, blaming unlucky timing that coincided with the pandemic.
The closing was hardly isolated. The craft beer industry that exploded in the 2010s, filling repurposed warehouses with tap and tasting rooms for locally made IPAs, has recently experienced a major hangover. More breweries in the U.S. have closed than opened in the last two years, according to the Brewers Association, as people drink less and costs have increased.
According to industry tracking from the Brewers Association, 434 U.S. craft breweries closed their doors in 2025, compared with 268 openings — meaning closures outpaced openings by a considerable margin.
San Francisco's Anchor Brewing Co., the world's oldest craft label and the godfather of so-called steam beer, permanently shut down in 2023 after years of failed efforts to revive the struggling brand.
Amid the local and national shakeout, breweries have focused on unique spaces and experiences to stand out from the crowd.
San Francisco Brewing Co. is touting an arcade, performance area and extensive food menu, along with cocktails and nonalcoholic drinks.
Pretzels and Pac Man
San Francisco Brewing Co. plans to serve dishes such as smash burgers and a giant pretzel with cheese sauce and stout mustard. The brewery production will have indoor and outdoor seating, an event space, a courtyard and a 26-seat bar. It has a liquor license to stay open until 2 a.m. nightly. The brewery plans to host outdoor entertainment with DJs and live music on weekends.
Guests will be able to drink while they check out the brewing operation, featuring large beer tanks and a 750-gallon copper pot still imported from Scotland, or play in an arcade corner that has a four-person Pac-Man game and a photo booth.
Josh Leavy, a tech sales executive who works at the construction AI platform Doxel, founded San Francisco Brewing Co. in 2012, originally renting production space from other brewers to produce his beer. He opened his Ghirardelli Square location with views of the San Francisco Bay in 2017.
“Mission Bay felt like the right next step for us," Leavy said in a statement. “We’re excited to get more of our beer out into the world and build something that becomes a true destination for the Bay Area.”
Mission Bay was little more than a dilapidated former industrial area that had mostly fallen into disuse by the late 1990s, when the city embraced a redevelopment scheme for the area.
It became a rare commercial real estate beacon as the rest of the city struggled in recent years, aided by a mix of new parks and an array of retail leases and tech startups in addition to gleaming medical campuses run by Kaiser and the University of California San Francisco.
The Mission Rock development, a partnership between the San Francisco Giants and developer Tishman Speyer, is set to redevelop 28 acres of vacant land on Pier 48 near the Bay Bridge that overlooks the Giants’ stadium into a mixed-use neighborhood. Plans call for 1.4 million square feet of offices, 200,000 square feet of retail space and 1,200 homes.
Software company Adobe was the announced anchor tenant for the office property at 100 Hooper St. when Kilroy broke ground on the $270 million development a decade ago. The building is also occupied by Redwood Materials, a battery recycling and energy storage firm that has a research and development operation there.
San Francisco Brewing Co. nabbed the ground floor of the retail area in the office building, plus a mezzanine space, via a lease inked last year.
The company’s small-batch brews are also sold in bars, restaurants and stores around the Bay Area. There has been a surge in activity on the brewery front in the city lately.
Last year, local chain Laughing Monk Brewery signed a lease for a restaurant with on-site brewing facilities at 1785 Fulton St. near Golden Gate Park, and Santa Cruz-based Humble Sea Brewing opened at Pier 39. Berkeley-born Fieldwork Brewing Co. plans to open a full-service restaurant and taproom at Mission Rock. And San Francisco's Woods Beer & Wine Co. finalized a new lease at Fisherman's Wharf, part of a wave of new entrants reinvigorating the storied tourist destination.
For the record
JLL's retail advisory team headed by Laura Tinetti represented the tenant in the lease deal.