Bill Lewis — Stanford PhD, tech exec, longtime regular — has taken the reins at Toronado and reopened the 38-year Lower Haight cash-only beer bar as of mid-June, under the legal entity Toronado Forever LLC.

Bill Lewis, a UC Berkeley graduate and Stanford PhD who built a career in tech, spent enough years as a Toronado regular to know he didn't want anyone else owning it. As of mid-June, he doesn't have to worry about that: Toronado is open again at 547 Haight St., under his watch and the new legal entity Toronado Forever, LLC.

Yelp activity from June 18 confirmed the Lower Haight beer bar back in operation, with 43 beers on the board and the cash-only policy intact. City business records show Toronado Forever LLC registered at 543–547 Haight in March 2025, when the transfer from founder Dave Keene's K & K Diversified Inc. — which had run the bar since 1987 — began. Lewis is partnering with his brother-in-law, Wallace Pringle. Keene is staying on as an ambassador; he put the property up for $1.75 million in January 2025 after 38 years running the taps.

"It is an honor to become the new owner of Toronado," Lewis said when the April sale was announced. "As a first-time small business owner, I'm excited to learn from the staff and hear from the customers."

The bar carries a Type 42 ABC license — beer and wine, on-premises. The adjacent storefront at 543 Haight, which housed Rosamunde sausage shop for years before Berliner Berliner took it over, is a potential expansion space under the new ownership; no confirmed plans yet.

The road to Lewis's ownership included a near-miss with a crypto investor who'd proposed a roof deck, a YouTube channel, and a Toronado-branded coin. That deal collapsed in early 2026. What's running now looks a lot like what's always run there: cash at the door, 43 taps, no nonsense.