Fortune soon smiled on Anchor and San Francisco once again, as Marin-ite Lawrence Steese bought the Brewery, reopening it in 1960 at yet another location, on 8th Street between Brannan and Bryant. Wisely, he hired back former brewmaster Joe Allen to help him carry Anchor's long brewing tradition forward into the new decade.

But one of Anchor's oldest and best accounts, the Crystal Palace Market, had already closed its doors in August 1959. And Steese, despite all his hard work, was having an increasingly difficult time convincing the remaining handful of loyal Bay Area bar and restaurant owners to continue to serve Anchor Steam. One such loyalist was Fred Kuh, whose Old Spaghetti Factory in North Beach was to play a pivotal role in saving San Francisco's Anchor Steam. By mid-1965, Lawrence Steese—like Joe Allen six years before—was ready to shut the Brewery down.