Future Bars converted its Nightingale Bar at 239 Kearny St. into Shotski's Alpine Lodge, a ski-lodge-themed bar that opened May 1 with foosball, watch parties, a live DJ and a spin-the-wheel drink game.

Shotski's Alpine Lodge, a ski-lodge-themed bar in the Financial District, opened May 1 at 239 Kearny St. — but it isn't a new tenant so much as a costume change. The room is a rebrand of Nightingale Bar, the 1970s-style "fern bar" that Future Bars ran in the same space from December 2019, according to industry site Alcademics, which first reported the conversion.

That lineage matters. Future Bars, the group co-founded by Brian Sheehy and Doug Dalton and behind cocktail rooms like Bourbon & Branch and Local Edition, isn't chasing a new lease here. It's re-skinning a bar it already owns, swapping the ferns for ski poles mounted to the wall and an antler chandelier. The phone number, (415) 649-6952, carried over from the Nightingale era.

The theme is the product. Reviewing the bar for The Infatuation on July 31, Patrick Wong described "a watch party of whatever big game is on, a live DJ, foosball, or a wheel that you can spin to decide your drink destiny for the night." The cocktails, he wrote, lean on fruit and warm spices, plus a seasonal boozy hot cocoa; there are chambong pours and shots for the brave. The Infatuation lists it at the entry, $-tier price point.

The space is bigger than the sidewalk suggests. A LoopNet listing for 239 Kearny puts it at roughly 1,070 square feet on the ground floor, a 1,635-square-foot basement and a 580-square-foot mezzanine, with rear seating on Claude Lane — and a California Type 48 on-sale general license. Shotski's markets three zones: Basecamp Bar, The Summit and the Claude Lane patio.

Before Nightingale, the address held Gitane, a French restaurant that ran roughly 2008 to 2019. In a corridor where turnover usually means a new operator, this is an established one betting that gimmick — done thoroughly — outlasts restraint.