Name: SF bar star Thad Vogler permanently closes 3 of his 4 ambitious restaurants
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SF bar star Thad Vogler permanently closes 3 of his 4 ambitious restaurants

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Thad Vogler, one of San Francisco’s most prominent barkeepers, has permanently closed three of his four restaurants: Obispo, Trou Normand and Nommo. All three have been closed during shelter-in-place, but the leader in the local bar scene has decided to go public with his decision not to reopen.COVID-19 certainly didn’t help, Vogler said. But the real reasons for the closures predate the pandemic and the economic shutdown and point to an existential crisis in the local bar and restaurant industry that had been brewing for years, at least in Vogler’s experience.“I made mistakes,” he said. “Classic restaurant mistakes: growing too quickly so you don’t have enough cash, then your places become mediocre because you don’t have the bandwidth to maintain quality. That’s where I was when COVID hit.”For years, the entire restaurant business “has been too precarious,” he continued. “We’ve all just been grinding with two weeks’ worth of cash in the bank, and that’s no way to take care of your employees.”His fourth business, Bar Agricole, is still on track to reopen in spring or summer 2021. Earlier this year, that he was relocating the 10-year-old, James Beard Award-winning restaurant from its original location in South of Market to the ground level of a luxury residential complex at 1550 Mission St. He’s still planning to add a liquor store there, too, where he’ll sell single-origin spirits imported under his own label.That project is exciting to Vogler. But operating several different restaurants throughout the city, he said, no longer feels enjoyable — or even possible. Rents are too high, margins too low.“There was no way of looking at the next year without it looking like just a big accumulation of debt,” he said. “I just didn’t want to do it.”A Vogler has become a leading voice in the bar community for a philosophy that he’s called expressed in his 2017 book “By the Smoke and the Smell.” He advocates for spirits that are not produced industrially, are sourced by sustainable methods and convey a sense of place. Think of it as fair-trade alcohol. Or, as he’s said before, “making drinks should be like making salads.”His penchant for these soulful spirits is evident in the names of his bars: Bar Agricole, named for rhum agricole, the French Caribbean rum that’s distilled from fresh cane sugar; Trou Normand, a traditional French palate cleanser that includes a scoop of sorbet and a shot of the apple brandy Calvados.Part of what Vogler is grappling with now is that he says he never wanted to be in the restaurant business — he wanted to be in the drinks business.“I’m not a good restaurateur; I’m a bartender,” he said. He ended up with restaurants, he said, because liquor licenses in San Francisco can cost $250,000, while licenses that allow for liquor service with food are much more attainable and affordable.He hopes that by downsizing to just Bar Agricole, he’ll be able to refocus his energy on drinks again.Pre-COVID, Vogler had temporarily closed Obispo, which opened in late 2018 after five years of delays, in order to reconfigure it with a new concept. a rum bar that attempted to engage with the ugly, imperialist nature of the spirit’s history — a sort of rebuttal to the revisionist history that modern tiki bars have performed. The rum drinks at Obispo were simple and unadorned, with nary a mai tai in sight. Works by folk artist Bill Traylor hung on the walls. Some proceeds went to the Museum of the African Diaspora and theWhere to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.But Vogler became uncomfortable with how Obispo played out. He was “a 6-foot-8-inch” northern European guy explaining pan-Africanism to a Guatemalan guy,” he said. “Everything was getting surreal.”Within a few months of the shutdown, he decided to abandon the reboot.The options for keeping any of the businesses open during the shutdown were unappealing, he said. Pivoting to takeout would require an entirely new business model. PPP loans would get him through a couple of payroll cycles, nothing more.“We’re in this business to do something beautiful, and my places don’t lend themselves to carry-out,” he said.Ultimately, though, Vogler said his decisions to close Obispo, Trou Normand and Nommo weren’t made by careful financial calculations. They were made by a feeling.More for you“I was just done,” he said.Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.comWhere to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Thad Vogler, one of San Francisco’s most prominent barkeepers, has permanently closed three of his four restaurants: Obispo, Trou Normand and Nommo. All three have been closed during shelter-in-place, but the leader in the local bar scene has decided to go public with his decision not to reopen.COVID-19 certainly didn’t help, Vogler said. But the real reasons for the closures predate the pandemic and the economic shutdown and point to an existential crisis in the local bar and restaurant industry that had been brewing for years, at least in Vogler’s experience.“I made mistakes,” he said....

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Esther Mobley

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SF bar star Thad Vogler permanently closes 3 of his 4 ambitious restaurants

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