After just seven months in business, Miami chef Brad Kilgore's showy Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant Ama has closed at the Transamerica complex, along with the more casual daytime spot Cafe Sebastian.

The departure of developer Michael Shvo from the Transamerica Pyramid means that the restaurant tenant he brought in for the ground floor spaces of 545 Sansome — rebranded as Three Transamerica Plaza — has to go as well. Chef Brad Kilgore's two restaurants, the casual Cafe Sebastian that's been open since December 2024 and the much-hyped Ama that opened in September 2025, are both now closed, as the Chronicle reports.

Restaurant kitchen equipment was seen being wheeled out of the spaces "under the watch of a security guard" on Tuesday morning, per the Chronicle. And so that's a quick exit for Kilgore's spots, which garnered quite a bit of press in part thanks to Shvo's marketing prowess.

Kilgore told the Chronicle that the new owner of the property was seeking an "unaffordable" lease rate for the spaces, and he said there are plans to demolish the building they're in as well. In a statement, Kilgore said, "I’m incredibly grateful to the San Francisco community that has supported us since the very beginning of this project, and with these openings."

Kilgore was a favorite culinary partner for Shvo, who also brought the chef in as culinary director for his Miami condo property, The Raleigh — which was also recently sold. And plans never came to fruition for a top-floor lounge and tenants-only restaurant in the Transamerica tower itself.

We learned in late February that the Transamerica Pyramid tower, along with the two adjacent buildings 505 and 545 Sansome, had been sold. Cyprus-based investment conglomerate Yoda PLC purchased the three buildings for an undisclosed sale price from the primary owner, German pension fund Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK).

The sale followed months of intrigue surrounding the reported souring of the relationship between Shvo and BVK — and while Shvo had publicly presented himself as the owner of the tower since it was purchased in 2020, it was never entirely clear if he had an ownership stake himself. The Chronicle reported in January that BVK and the investment management firm Deutsche Finance Group had been seeking a new US asset manager to replace Shvo, and Shvo at the time adamantly denied that this was true.

But signs of trouble at the property date back quite a while.

The Wall Street Journal reported last August on an ongoing "bitter legal dispute" between Shvo and BVK, and the evidence was beginning to pile up that properties linked to Shvo and financed by BVK were in trouble. A Beverly Hills condo project and The Raleigh in Miami were both sold off last year, due to sluggish unit sales, and the same trouble was happening at the Mandarin Oriental Residences Fifth Avenue.

The Mandarin Oriental Residences was also at the center of a 2024 lawsuit brought by a disgruntled homeowner who claimed that Shvo had treated the building as "his own personal fiefdom" before abandoning it, leaving behind an unmaintained roofdeck and pool, surrounded by dead plants, an unfinished entrance, and a private restaurant with celebrity chef Daniel Boulud attached that closed every day at 5 pm.

There is also still a legal dispute dating back to 2024 between Shvo and the luxe CORE club that he had announced as the first major tenant of the Transamerica Pyramid, though it never actually opened there. CORE has taken Shvo to court in New York as the two parties continue to battle over their soured business relationship — and Crain's New York Business reported that the court hearings were ongoing as of last month. CORE is a tenant at 711 Fifth Avenue in New York, a building Shvo acquired before the pandemic that could also be part of the BVK portfolio, though that is not clear.

The SF restaurant closures are an unfortunate setback for Kilgore, who told Fine Dining Lovers last year that partnering with developers was at the center of his post-COVID business strategy, following the closures of three of his Miami restaurants, Alter, Ember, and Kaido.

"Food and beverage is a story of a property and restaurants are a piece of the puzzle in the real estate strategy," Kilgore said. "I didn't really realize the potential of it until COVID hit. It opened up our eyes to how different the industry is and how little we have to stand with. Everything is day-by-day with restaurants and as the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Pension holders with BVK are reportedly preparing legal action against the pension fund that is entirely related to its investments with Shvo projects. As IPE reported in January, BVK had disclosed 163 million euros in losses related to these investments in 2024, and warned of 690 million euros in potential future losses, with the Transamerica purchase and renovation specifically cited as one of these investments.

Previously: Transamerica Pyramid Reportedly Being Sold For Second Time In Six Years