PlumpJack Group Turning SOMA's Sloane Into Forgery, A Swanky Cocktail Bar

Its name may suggest deception, but Forgery will be the genuine article as far as cocktail geeks are concerned, with the formidable Jacques Bezuidenhout and Ken Luciano, who headed up Kimpton Hotels' cocktail efforts for many years, running the show. Owned by PlumpJack Group, the massive restaurant/hotel/winery collaborative from Hilary and Gavin Newsom, the new bar will be taking over a portion of the space on Mission between 11th and Van Ness that previously housed nightclub Sloane. (The nightclub portion of the space remains in the works; its concept, which will be separate from Forgery, is still being hammered out.)

At Forgery, Bezuidenhout and Luciano plan to offer "approachable" cocktails and an "imaginative" beer and wine list, spread across 2,000 square feet of black leather banquettes, brick walls, and a second-floor loft overlooking the mahogany bar. If all goes as planned, the bar should open sometime next month, with the artist formerly known as Sloane being used as a private-events space for the time being. It's not the only SF bar PlumpJack has in the works outside of its Marina/Cow Hollow home base: the company has also inked a deal to take over the Lexington Club, the city's only lesbian bar, after it closes at the end of this month. That concept, which will not be gay-oriented, also remains TBD. Meanwhile, this corner of SOMA is quickly turning into a cocktail-bar row: with Oddjob/SRO, Alta CA, and the forthcoming Dirty Water and Mr. Tipple's Recording Studio all within a few blocks, the tech crowd streaming into the area will have no end of watering holes.