The Bourbon & Branch guys' new bar has ANOTHER bar hidden underneath it

By Grant Marek

Published on 12/17/2014 at 3:00 AM

Grant Marek
Grant Marek

From the hitmakers behind Bourbon & Branch, Tradition, Local Edition, and Rickhouse comes The Devil's Acre -- an apothecary-themed North Beach boozery (they've got everything from scientist's eye droppers to more than 100 century-old chemist's canisters) with a first-of-its-kind, seriously-no-one-is-doing-this cocktail program and a basement bar hidden down an unmarked staircase in the back.

Grant Marek
The "Devil's Acre" is actually what people called the super-sketchy, crime-ridden stretch of Kearny St between Pacific and Broadway during the Barbary Coast days in the 1880s.
Grant Marek
Which makes the whole "drugs" thing here make a ton of sense. The owners take the theme pretty far, too, from having the bar staff wear leather smocks like real-ass apothecary dudes did to avoid chemical stains...
Grant Marek
... to these floor tiles that are replicas of wooden pill tiles you'd receive in the late 1800s when graduating with an apothecary degree. Back in the day, they'd use them to mix, roll, or divide small quantities of pills.
Grant Marek

But you're not coming here for the history (wait... are you?), so let's talk about this whole first-of-its-kind, seriously-no-one-is-doing-this cocktail program. The drink menu features tons of super throwbacks from the late 1800s (Pisco Punch, St. Croix Fix, Devil's Manhattan) and a handful of Barbary Coast originals, all of which you can add any of eight "remedies" to. The remedies -- all developed by a real-life herbalist -- count everything from an "immunity tonic", to a "stress soother", to a "hangover cure" (ohthankgod), and include ingredients that sound like they probably actually do something (Siberian ginseng, meadowsweet, astragalus...).

Oh, and the bartenders will mix your tipple + remedy in this insane spinning cocktail shaker from 1890. So... there's that.

Grant Marek

And because why the hell not, they also make their own sodas from scratch. This is a root beer. It was delicious.

Grant Marek

This is where things get REALLY good, though. Down a staircase at the far back wall you'll submerge yourself in a totally separate bar called Remedie; a dark, small, cavern of a bar that's absolutely perfect in every way that dark, small, caverns of bars should be.

Grant Marek

A few more brass tacks: 1) IT OPENS TODAY!!! 2) Seating for Remedie and The Devil's Acre will be almost entirely reservation-only (you'll be able to make a reservation here), save the bar area, which is open seating, 3) the hours will be 3pm-2am, Wed-Sun and 5pm-2am on Tuesday, and 4) it's a permit away from also having a live jazz band upstairs.

Sign up here for our daily San Francisco email and be the first to get all the food/drink/fun SF has to offer.

Grant Marek is a Senior Editor at Thrillist and plans to be holed up in Remedie from 3pm-2am today, and every day thereafter. Find him on Twitter @grant_marek.