A new oyster house called The Bonacker is heading into the former Leo's Oyster Bar space at 568 Sacramento St., with an early 2027 opening planned for the Financial District address. The restaurant comes from chef Brad Kilgore, whose last three San Francisco restaurants inside the Transamerica Pyramid Center shut down earlier this year, and it's named after a historic Long Island fishing community that has nothing to do with San Francisco but everything to do with oysters.
Leo's Oyster Bar quietly closed its doors at the Sacramento Street address in July after its 10-year lease expired and owner Anna Weinberg opted not to renew, according to SFist. The closure came about a decade after the raw bar earned design acclaim, and not long after Weinberg filed for bankruptcy protection in May amid legal claims from vendors, former partners, and former employees over unpaid obligations, the outlet reported. Weinberg had operated Big Night Restaurant Group, one of San Francisco's more prominent hospitality companies, and Hoodline previously covered her fight to keep Tosca and Leo's afloat.
Kilgore's move to the space is a fast pivot. His three prior San Francisco ventures — Ama by Brad Kilgore, Café Sebastian, and MadLab Kakigori, all inside the Transamerica Pyramid Center — closed earlier in 2026, according to WhatNow. The closures came after the Transamerica Pyramid Center property was sold earlier in 2026, per WhatNow and the San Francisco Chronicle.
What's on the Menu at The Bonacker
The new restaurant will lean heavily into oysters, with plans to serve three types of Bay Area or Northern California oysters alongside one or two East Coast varieties, per the San Francisco Chronicle as cited in the WhatNow report. Expect fresh-shucked oysters with house-made sauces, plus both traditional preparations and options incorporating massaman curry powder.
Kilgore isn't a stranger to national acclaim. Before expanding to San Francisco, the Miami chef was named a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2016 and picked up multiple James Beard Award nominations for his work at Florida restaurants including Alter, according to Business Wire. Hoodline first reported on his arrival in the city back in 2024, when he was tapped to lead dining operations as part of the Transamerica Pyramid's rebirth, a $400 million revitalization led by developer SHVO and architect Lord Norman Foster, with the tower's public reopening scheduled for September 12, per SHVO.
Ken Fulk Returns to a Space He Designed a Decade Ago
Perhaps the most striking wrinkle here is that designer Ken Fulk, who is handling The Bonacker's renovations, is the same person who created Leo's Oyster Bar's original 1950s tropical-glamour look. That design, made alongside Jon de la Cruz, earned Bon Appétit's 2016 Best Design award, according to SFist's coverage from that year. The Bonacker will retain some elements of the existing space while receiving updates for the new concept, per the Chronicle citation in the WhatNow report.
Fulk's résumé in San Francisco dining runs deep — he's also behind the interiors at Tosca Cafe, according to Modern Luxury. Hoodline covered his work on Tosca's historic reopening in 2021. The Sacramento Street address itself has quite a past beyond Leo's: before the oyster bar moved in, the building housed the upscale barbecue spot Wexler's.
Why 'The Bonacker'
The restaurant's name is a nod to managing partner Julian Uribe's roots. Uribe, who is from East Hampton, New York, is naming the concept after the Bonackers — working-class families of baymen, fishermen, and farmers in the Springs area near East Hampton who historically harvested clams and oysters from Accabonac Harbor, according to research from The Bonackers Project. Accabonac Harbor itself is known for its oyster production, tying the restaurant's East Coast namesake directly to its raw bar concept.
Exactly how much of Fulk's original architecture will survive the renovation, and whether a lunch-driven Financial District oyster house can pull enough foot traffic in a downtown still finding its post-pandemic rhythm, remains to be seen. For now, The Bonacker is aiming for an early 2027 opening in a space that has already worn several identities across six decades of San Francisco dining and nightlife history.
