San Francisco’s embattled Saluhall, the IKEA-adjacent food hall on Market Street, has seen more departures than new tenants recently. Now, a new operator is taking over the venue’s bars, which went dark late last year.
Saluhall management announced Wednesday that Spirited Beverage Co., the beverage arm of a large Bay Area events company, Always Fishing Hospitality Group, will take over the three bars inside the two-story food hall.
“This project is about creating a place that feels like it belongs to the city,” Always Fishing CEO John Silva said in a press release. “We’ve spent years building systems that support great hospitality at scale, now we get to bring that same level of care, intention, and accessibility into a space people can return to every day.”
SFGate first reported the news. This is the company’s first foray into operating a permanent storefront – and comes at a turbulent time for Saluhall, which has seen management changes and an ongoing exodus of tenants. (SFGate and the San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently.)
Under previous management, Saluhall’s bars – two bars and a lounge inside the 20,000-square-foot venue – each had different names and offerings. Now, they will all operate under the name Spirited at Salluhall. Drinks will include cocktails, beer, wine and non-alcoholic beverages. A menu and opening date will be announced in the coming weeks.
Always Fishing’s beverage director Austin Klein, a San Francisco native who grew up blocks from Saluhall, will oversee Spirited at Saluhall. “We’re building something that reflects the energy of San Francisco and creates space for people to gather in a way that feels natural and welcoming,” Klein said in the release.
Guests wait in line, sit at tables and walk through San Francisco’s Saluhall, as photographed in 2025. A new operators is slated to take over Saluhall’s bars. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
Always Fishing will arrive after Saluhall (and IKEA) parent company Ingka Centres dismissed Kerb Food, a London-based hospitality group, from its role as the food hall’s operator in November. The move shut down Saluhall’s three proprietary bars and its coffee counter. As many as 30 workers, which included bartenders, dishwashers and other service staff, lost their jobs.
Saluhall opened in 2024 with hopes of sparking a post-pandemic economic recovery for the Mid-Market neighborhood. Its original lineup of proprietary vegan restaurant concepts have all since closed. Of the five original Bay Area restaurant vendors in its upstairs area, only Indian fast food kiosk Curry Up Now remains. The only other remaining tenants are Smish Smash, ranked No. 80 in the Chronicle’s 2026 Top 100 restaurants list, and Filipino sandwich vendor Izzy & Wooks, on the hall’s first and second floors, respectively.
Last summer, as Ingka Centres searched for a new bar operator, a leasing representative reached out to San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development to crowdsource ideas for a local winery or brewery to open a tasting room at Saluhall, according to documents obtained by the Chronicle through a public records request. “Meaning we would provide them a fully functional bar space in one of our concepts (I have some new deals working) and they would staff and operate and just pay some percentage of their sales, with no or limited investment,” Ingka US and Canada leasing manager Manny Steiner wrote in an August 2025 email to Laurel Arvanitidis, OEWD’s business development director.
A cocktail at Punsch Bar at Saluhall in San Francisco. Saluhall originally opened with three proprietary bars, all of which closed in November. A new operator is slated to take the bars over. (Michaela Vatcheva/Special to The Chronicle)
The proposed lease terms for the bars included paying a license fee equal to 8% of all gross sales, plus $3,000 in monthly utilities, according to an email Steiner sent to a commercial leasing specialist at the city’s Office of Small Business in February, as he continued to search for a new bar tenant.
By late February, Steiner told the specialist that they had a deal on the bar operator, but were still looking to fill food hall gaps. “Where we will need help is on the food stalls. 10% of sales, turnkey condition plus $1500 for utilities and $500 for common area costs monthly (security, cleaning of food hall, etc.),” he wrote.
As recently as last month, a lease dispute led to the departure of yet another vendor.
This article originally published at New life at troubled downtown S.F. IKEA food hall: The bars are coming back.