Bar Agricole, which reopened this spring in a new location, as a companion bar to Osito, quietly closed its doors in July and won't be reopening, apparently ever, anywhere.

I thought there was still life in the Bar Agricole brand, as a cocktail bar, but owner Thad Vogler says he's given up the ghost when it comes to owning a brick-and-mortar bar, just a few months after it's 3.0 iteration opened. "I feel like I don’t even understand brick-and-mortar San Francisco anymore," Vogler tells the Chronicle, adding that the customers weren't really lining up anymore, and "maybe the concept is old."

That concept, a high-end cocktail bar focused on quality spirits and classic recipes, with a nod to the tropics, won Vogler plenty of attention and accolades in the last decade. And Bar Agricole, in its original home on 11th Street in SoMa (now home to Californios), was a perennial nominee for Outstanding Bar Program at the James Beard Awards starting in 2012. It ultimately took home the medal in 2019.

The success, which included positive reviews for the food at Bar Agricole as well, led to Vogler opening a small empire of upscale bars including the brandy-centric Trou Normand downtown, the rum-focused Obispo in the Mission, and Nommo in Rincon Hill — which was a partnership with Prizefighter owner Jon Santer and was hailed by Eater as a new spot from a cocktail "dream team" when it debuted in February 2019.

The timing wasn't great for the expansion, with a pandemic around the corner, and Trou Normand, Obispo, and Nommo were all casualties. Bar Agricole had also just closed in preparation for a splashy reopening in the new 1550 Mission tower in SoMa — a reopening that then occurred as the pandemic faded, and Vogler, who had long operated as a restaurant-bar in SoMa, bemoaned that this new spot felt too much like a restaurant, and not enough like a bar.

Then came the closure announcement in March 2024, and the subsequent news that Bar Agricole would take over the newly built former Liliana space next to Osito (2875 18th Street) — where chef-owner Seth Stowaway had decided he didn't want to operate a bar in addition to a Michelin-starred restaurant. With that news came plans for a separate, Brazilian-inspired restaurant based on Obispo, called Bispo, which Vogler said would be opening in 2025 in the former Lucca Ravioli space on Valencia Street.

All of this, now, has been scrapped, as Vogler reveals to the Chronicle. The space next to Osito was a month-to-month lease, and he is only focusing on his Bar Agricole spirits business for now. Vogler has been bottling and selling both Bar Agricole-branded and curating a list of high-end and single-origin spirits since before the pandemic, and that will expand with 12 new products this winter, he tells the Chronicle. These will include a single-estate nocino (walnut liqueur), a biodynamic-certified gin, and a dry curaçao. All products are available online, and he'll be distributing to local bars and restaurants as well.

This may be a return to his core passion — Vogler penned a book in 2017 called By the Smoke and the Smell: My Search for the Rare and Sublime on the Spirits Trail that is a good read for food and spirits geeks. But it is a sad loss for the San Francisco bar scene, where Bar Agricole had been a pillar for over a decade.

Vogler does say that he will continue consulting at Michelin three-starred Quince, where Bar Agricole has been doing a "pop-up," essentially running the cocktail program there, since the spring. That in itself seemed like a hedging of bets when it was announced in April, given the recent announcement of the relocation of Bar Agricole, and perhaps it was.

And now, we can only savor memories of a perfect 'Ti Punch, and that excellent burger. Fare thee well.