The billionaire behind the Chobani yogurt brand has acquired Anchor Brewing Co. with plans to modernize and reopen the historic San Francisco brand that closed last year after 127 years in operation. On Friday, Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani founder and CEO, announced that his family office had bought all of Anchor’s assets: the iconic steam beer recipes, the 2.1-acre Potrero Hill campus and all the brewing equipment in the De Haro Street warehouses. The price was not disclosed.

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On Thursday, he met with four longtime Anchor employees and said he plans to hire back as many of the former workers as possible. He didn’t know whether the union that formed there shortly before the brewery closed will be part of the new operations.

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Ulukaya, who has won national awards for hiring refugees at Chobani, said he was not worried about the negativity that has dominated San Francisco’s post-pandemic narrative, although he is aware of the city’s homelessness and poverty issues because he had visited St. Anthony’s, Glide and other nonprofits recently with 80 members of the Chobani leadership team who were in town to meet and volunteer.

Ulukaya said he witnessed “pain and suffering children without enough food, families struggling and people with mental illness.”

“There is not success unless everyone is rising,” he said. “The business can play an enormous role in that. It has to be part of the solution. We can’t just rely on the government.”