Eric Ehler and Peter Dorrance, the operators behind cult pizza shop Outta Sight, are returning to the pop-up circuit to road-test the menu for Reggie and Maude's, a bar they plan to open this fall in the former Pomeroy Bar & Grill space on Larkin Street.

Eric Ehler and Peter Dorrance ran Outta Sight as a pop-up before they signed the lease on 422 Larkin St. in the Tenderloin, where the pizza shop has operated under the Got Served LLC entity since May 2021. Now they're going around again. The duo will open Reggie and Maude's — a neighborhood bar built around classic cocktails and unfussy food — in October, taking over the former Pomeroy Bar & Grill at 460 Larkin, two doors down from their first slice shop. City records show the Pomeroy space, registered under DKK LLC in February 2020, went dark before this year.

Before they sign off on the menu, Ehler and Dorrance are running four months of pop-ups to test recipes and get the word out. The first is Monday, June 29, at Jules, 237 Fillmore St. in the Lower Haight, starting at 5 p.m. and running until they sell out.

The food will be two things: burgers and hot dogs. The burger is what Ehler calls "skinny-thick" — a meaty patty with char rather than the lacey smashburger edges that have become inescapable around the city. He's drawing from Peter Luger's in New York for the sauce direction: one steak-sauce adjacent, one a garlicky, MSG-heavy aioli, plus raw onion and onion fried in burger fat. The hot dogs lean Chicago — Vienna beef, thin, dressed in a ground-beef topping closer to a loose-meat sandwich than a chili. Since Jules holds a beer-and-wine license, the June 29 pop-up will pour from the restaurant's wine list, cheap beer, and a Smirnoff Ice cocktail served in a red cup.

When Reggie and Maude's opens on Larkin, it will have a full spirits program and bartenders capable of making whatever someone walks in wanting. The name references Reggie Gamble and Maude Spencer, who organized a 1917 movement for sex workers' rights. Ehler described the concept to the SF Standard as a deliberate counterpoint to the high-concept cocktail bar: approachable, quality, no surprises. The same pitch he used to describe Outta Sight. No city business registration for the bar has filed yet; no seat count or price point has been announced.

The Larkin corridor between Turk and Eddy has absorbed several of the city's more durable independent operators over the past decade. Adding a neighborhood bar from the team behind one of SF's better-regarded pizza shops — in a space that's been waiting for a tenant — is a reasonable bet on the block. Whether it holds through year two will depend on the lease terms Ehler and Dorrance negotiated with whoever controls 460 Larkin now.