Bar Malone's, the new SoMa bar from operators Gabriel Freiberg and Eric Passetti, soft-opened in early June in the former District San Francisco space near Oracle Park — and is positioning a year-round happy hour program, not baseball traffic, as its survival strategy.

Bar Malone's soft-opened in early June 2026 at 216 Townsend Street in SoMa — the brick-walled, high-ceilinged space that housed District San Francisco for nearly 20 years before that wine bar closed in April. A proper happy hour menu came online in early July: $2 oysters, $4 oyster shooters, deals on pints of lager and pours of rosé. The Giants play 81 home games a season. Co-owner Gabriel Freiberg wants to fill the room 270 nights.

"We want something that people come back to," Freiberg told the SF Standard.

The bar is co-owned by Freiberg and Eric Passetti, between them responsible for opening, managing, or co-owning nearly a dozen SF venues including Grumpy's, Pie Punks, Beretta, Old Ship Saloon, Harlan Records, Natoma Cabana, and Terminus — a portfolio built largely around downtown happy hour economics. Interior design is by Anna Weinberg, who currently operates Tosca Cafe and Leo's Oyster Bar and formerly ran Marlowe, Park Tavern, and the Cavalier, in her first solo design role.

The room's centerpiece is a retained horseshoe bar — 24 seats, refinished with a new lacquer top and brass trim — that Freiberg claims as one of the largest in the city. "Cha Cha Cha in the Mission claims the largest," he told the Standard. "We'll happily take second." Total venue capacity has not been publicly confirmed; predecessor District held approximately 180.

The name nods to Sam Malone, Ted Danson's character on Cheers, though the execution skips the nostalgia act. The pitch is to be "your favorite bartender's favorite bartender," per Freiberg. The menu backs that up: bar bites like fried chicken thighs with hot honey and triple-cooked fries sit alongside steak frites and black cod with ginger beurre blanc — entrees more commonly found at higher price-point rooms. Specific entree prices have not been publicly stated.

The signature cocktail is the Scoundrel: Boodles gin or Luksusowa vodka, house-made brine, olive, and pickled onion. Freiberg told the Standard the 50-50 martini program is a deliberate response to craft-cocktail snobbery: "Dirty martini was a dirty word. People thought it was below them to make them. But our 50-50 martini is meant for oysters." Sunday brunch is planned for later this month.

A search of San Francisco business registration records returned no match for "Bar Malone's" under that name or the operators' surnames. Bar Malone's is at barmalones-sf.com, Instagram @barmalones, 216 Townsend St.