Published Sep. 28, 2026at6:00am
Earlier this year, the yogurt billionaire Hamdi Ulukaya delivered a message to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “You need to learn to talk to CEOs,” the chief executive of Chobani told the Democratic Socialist, according to (opens in new tab)The Wall Street Journal (opens in new tab).
I have some equally blunt advice for Ulukaya: You need to learn to talk to San Francisco.
Stop ghosting us over your intentions for Anchor Brewing, the beloved beermaker you bought more than two years ago and have allowed to lie fallow ever since. Otherwise, we will be forced to take drastic action: That’s right, I’m talking about a full boycott of Chobani dairy products, from the 20g-protein Greek yogurts that power the city’s AI-coding masses to the 4.5-ounce Chobani Flip cups larding the lunches of countless SF schoolkids.
Bring back our beer, or face a yogurt strike!
Now, this may seem like a first-world overreaction. But I would argue that it is Ulukaya who has gone too far. When the Turkish-born billionaire descended onto San Francisco in May 2024, he was properly greeted as Anchor’s savior. The century-plus-old Potrero Hill brewer’s former owner, Japanese beer giant Sapporo, shuttered it in 2023 and put the assets on the block. Ulukaya swooped in, paying an undisclosed amount — estimated at $50 million, based more on the real estate than on the recipe for steam beer — and hinting he would reopen in time to deliver Anchor’s prized Christmas Ale that year.
Notably, the purchase came from Ulukaya’s, not Chobani’s, coffers. His radio silence ever since has been odd and befuddling. Who shells out his personal cash for a community icon, promises to return it to glory, then vanishes without a trace? Yet his behavior is more than strange. It also is rude and disrespectful to a prideful city that, some naysayers aside, welcomed him with open arms.
If something is keeping the impressive and respected Ulukaya from moving forward with Anchor, why doesn’t he just say so and move on?
“I don’t like sitting around and waiting too long,” Ulukaya told The Standard in 2024, sporting an Anchor Brewing baseball cap and a “We ❤️SF” lapel pin. Ulukaya acknowledged at the time that he didn’t know much about beer, though he possessed hard-won knowledge of fermentation. I have subsequently heard he was smitten by the symbolism of Anchor’s logo — anchors are prominent in Turkish culture, from the derivation of the nation’s capital, Ankara, to the design of its currency, the lira —and had visions of creating a soft drink with his newfound beverage-making capability.
Since then, however, it has been bupkis from the Anchor factory and crickets from Ulukaya. Given the state of solitude on Anchor’s 2.17 acres in one of the city’s sunniest neighborhoods — I live just blocks away in Potrero — soon a third Christmas will pass under Ulukaya’s ownership with no ale or any other kind of beer flowing from the factory.
Anchor Brewing’s company flag flies upside down at its headquarters in July 2023, the month of its closing. | Source: Jeremy Chen/The Standard
Wondering what has become of Anchor Brewing has become a fixation for the beer-obsessed media. A year after the acquisition, The Standard wondered at length what had become of Ulukaya. Then SFGate followed suit. A year after that, the Chronicle and The Standard followed up — journalists love anniversaries — with articles noting that while Ulukaya still wasn’t talking, (opens in new tab)some evidence of to-and-froing (opens in new tab) behind the high walls of the brewery suggested a move might be afoot to reopen.
And then, once again, nothing.
When I read recently that Ulukaya had joined Mamdani’s new (opens in new tab)Business Advisory Council (opens in new tab), I reached out to Nishant Roy, Chobani’s chief impact officer and Ulukaya’s government and media fixer. He asked by email if I had a few minutes to connect the following week. Then he ghosted me, just as his boss has been ignoring San Francisco. I tried contacting Ulukaya and Roy again last week; their silence was deafening. Cyrus Sanandaji of Presidio Bay Ventures, which Ulukaya tapped to help relaunch Anchor, declined to comment.
The inexplicable thing about Ulukaya’s behavior is that he casts himself — and is celebrated — as a caring businessman. I interviewed him at a Fortune event nine years ago, where (opens in new tab)he talked about his benevolent scheme (opens in new tab) to grant Chobani shares to his employees. Indeed, Chobani frequently wraps itself in goodness. “Our employees represent the communities where we live,” the company’s website exudes. “They champion our culture of respect, inclusion, and belonging.”
It is not like Ulukaya is hiding. A passionate soccer fan and booster of U.S. relations with Turkey, (opens in new tab)he was in Los Angeles this summer (opens in new tab) for the U.S.-Turkey World Cup match. A few weeks ago, he (opens in new tab)bonded with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (opens in new tab) over Chobani’s investment in an Allentown dairy. Last week, he (opens in new tab)appeared (opens in new tab) at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.
And yet San Francisco isn’t the only city where Ulukaya makes big promises and then grows quiet when his new neighbors ask how things are going. The Real Deal (opens in new tab)reported Aug. 26 (opens in new tab) that the “much-hyped” Chobani House, a planned community hub in lower Manhattan that had been announced with much fanfare nearly two years earlier, “remains conspicuously quiet.” Three days after the article appeared, Chobani responded with a blah-blah-blah statement about “taking the time to get it right.”
Maybe that’s what’s going on in San Francisco too.
Anne Taupier, executive director of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, whose job is to court local business, told me she was last in touch with Ulukaya’s team in June. They told her their diligence at the Anchor site continued but offered no timetable for reopening. “We look forward to engaging with them and supporting their efforts when they are ready to bring steam beer production back to San Francisco,” said Taupier.
So, what’s the harm of Ulukaya sitting on his hands over Anchor Brewing? San Francisco assesses (opens in new tab)a vacancy tax (opens in new tab) on empty storefronts, but no penalty exists for billionaires refusing to brew beer. The dormant Potrero facility isn’t costing the taxpayers of San Francisco anything. Ulukaya seems to run his billion-dollar enterprise like a family business, with him being the family member without whom nothing gets done. That may not be satisfying, but it’s not a crime. Still, a shuttered brewery is not the (opens in new tab)highest and best use (opens in new tab) of a two-acre parcel in the heart of a neighborhood that aggressively builds housing. In the meantime, every San Francisco bar that was rationing its stock of Anchor Steam has likely long run dry.
But if Ulukaya won’t return our affection — or our phone calls — what should San Francisco do to get his attention? For starters, we could inform him that while Chobani easily has the (opens in new tab)highest market share of any Greek yogurt in the U.S., (opens in new tab) there are other brands we could be buying. In my own refrigerator, for example, I found tubs of Fage (pronounced FA-yeh) and Safeway’s house brand, Lucerne. My editor highly recommends the Greek yogurt from Sonoma dairymaker Straus Family Creamery. We have options, Hamdi.
So I am laying down the stakes for our absentee beerlord: Either get to work revitalizing the legacy brand you once professed to love, or sell it to one of the other billionaires around town with money to burn and reputations to burnish. Until then, San Franciscans should get their yogurt fix somewhere else.