by Alex S. on A fun, unpretentious pub with a mellow neighborhood crowd, featuring a strong Irish contingent and some USF students, and reasonably priced drinks. Very popular for sports, with lots of big screens all over the place, and has been developing into a pretty solid live music venue as well. In recent months the owner has been making a serious effort to improve the Abbey as a place for live music: he's expanded the stage, which makes it a lot better for bands to set up without spilling onto the dance floor, and he's also extended the live music schedule to include Saturdays when there isn't a major PPV sporting event. Usually no cover for music, and the bands range from folky to all-out rock and roll.
by Joesph Biggers on i'm a really big dork when it comes to museums, aquariums, planetariums and the like. so i might be a bit biased when i moved to sf and heard that they serve drinks and have live djs play songs at night....what a great idea! we went drinking in the area and arrived at 6pm-ish to make sure we catch all the shows and exhibits. we thought for sure that we wouldn't need to stay past 8pm. before we knew it, it was after 10pm and they were asking everyone politely to leave. time flies in there! line up for the planetarium show FIRST, the shows get sold out fast. as soon as you get your tickets, head over to the rainforest. it's perfect- the rainforest takes you directly to the aquarium. the rainforest was really hot, humid and full of trees, butterlies, birds, and exhibits of other cool rainforesty animals. there were different levels that represented different levels of a rainforest...starting at the dark rainforest floor and then working your way up to the top of the trees. my favorite part is the aquarium! it was really quite an impressive collection of tanks, displays...fish. there was a lot to see, and the biggest portion of the night was spent here. i dont even think i was able to see everything before we had to head over to the planetarium show! they have cool touch tanks where you can touch star fish and sea urchins and shells. the planetarium show was worth a watch. if i go back again, i'm not sure if i would do it again but it's def a good thing to try out during your first time there! i suspect it would be a great show if you were intoxicated, but my buzz had far run out by then. it was a pretty long show, about an hour long, and it mostly consisted of photographs and pictures of the solar system, and every now and then a little star wars-ish travel through the stars. it was kinda annoying to be in such a close proximity to people who were drunk and would randomly make noises/scream/make stupid comments. we ran around, looking at normal exhibits too but we weren't able to see everything before it closed. there definitely wasn't a time when we were standing around bored, having looked at everything there was to see. the gift shop even stayed open a bit later so that everyone can buy their choice of cute souvenirs before heading out the doors. i def recommend trying out nightlife at least once! i never went during normal hours, but i heard it's a lot less annoying without kids running around. i already have plans to head back for nightlife :) check it out!
