Fat Angel, Fillmore bar and restaurant, closes after 10 years

Fat Angel, a Fillmore District bar and restaurant, closed on Dec. 31 after 10 years in business. Fat Angel, a Fillmore District bar and restaurant, closed on Dec. 31 after 10 years in business. Photo: Fat Angel / Facebook Photo: Fat Angel / Facebook Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close Fat Angel, Fillmore bar and restaurant, closes after 10 years 1 / 45 Back to Gallery

Fat Angel, a wine and beer bar and restaurant in the Fillmore neighborhood of San Francisco, closed on Dec. 31 after 10 years in operation.

The petite bar and neighborhood gem, tucked off Fillmore Street on O'Farrell, gained fans for its eclectic beer cellar, diverse wine list, and unpretentious comfort food menu. Being near the Fillmore theater and other entertainment venues through the years, it served as a popular date destination.

"After 1,867 kegs of beer, 1,984 different bottle beers, 676 wine producers, 26,150 chicken pot pies & 20,296 kale salads Fat Angel will be closing at year's end," wrote owners Cyrick Hia and Jason Kirmse on Facebook. "Thank you all for a wonderful 10 years, it's been a great ride and we will miss you all dearly."

The closure is yet another hit to the Fillmore District small-business landscape, which saw another tragic 2019 closure in the nearby Caribbean restaurant Isla Vida. Owners there cited light foot traffic in the neighborhood as a big reason for the drop in business.

Fat Angel did not give a reason for its closure, however, with Kirmse simply writing on the restaurant's website that the team had "decided to close our doors on December 31." (Fat Angel's California Alcoholic Beverage Control permit is due to expire at the end of January 2020.)

RELATED: Fat Angel, San Francisco: haven for beer lovers

Fat Angel was "born out of a passion for The Fillmore District," reads the restaurant's official site, "[serving] comforting food and drink to the community."

As Hoodline wrote in 2016, Hia and Kirmse years ago lived in the Fillmore, and worked in the Fillmore Center apartment building leasing apartments in the mid-aughts. They eventually decided to open a restaurant in the area at the time, they said, because before State Bird Provisions and the Progress opened, "the bar was set so low [for competition] ... [It was] before anybody really knew about Lower Fillmore."

Despite the closure, it's not the end of the road for Kirmse and Hia; the two are partners in San Francisco restaurants Corridor, on Van Ness, and Trestle in North Beach.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGate digital editor. Email: alyssa.pereira@sfgate.com | Twitter: @alyspereira

