PianoFight

Great food and entertainment! Can’t comment on the drinks since I normally go for neat drinks, but the menu looked nice. I had the portobello burger with a side of cajun fries (which curly and spicy — praise the lord!). Food was fresh and pretty delicious for a bar. Normally not the biggest fan of a portobello burger, but they did this one well. My friends all agreed that the food was great — most of them ordered the chicken sandwich. This place is definitely worth a try if you’re in the area.

Where else can you go to grab a meal and drinks and also catch a wake in a bar? I stumbled upon this place while looking for date ideas to impress my girlfriend on one of our early dates. She’s still around, so mission accomplished.
There are proper theaters in addition to the restaurant/​bar area that you will encounter when entering PianoFight, but, for this particular performance, The Wake, everything was staged in the restaurant/​bar area. The premise was that there was a wake being held the bar. The performers integrated themselves amongst the crowd so there were bits of action taking place everywhere from the table where the body was displayed to the actual bar to the bathroom. Moreover, the audience was encouraged to interact and move around to examine different conversations taking place within the piece.
As my girlfriend and I had ordered some food and drinks just before the show, we mostly stuck to our table and dined during the performance. Not only did we enjoy the show, but the food and cocktails we had were pretty tasty as well.
Looking at the calendar for PianoFight, you’ll find everything from sketch comedy to plays to film screenings. I have yet to make it back for a second taste of this place, but I am eager to do so soon.

Place was great. Drinks were reasonably priced and there was a free comedy show at 12. Heckler was a bitch but it was late so kinda had to deal.

Disclaimer: A friend of mine works at PianoFight and performed the night of my visit — clear bias!
This place is AWESOME!!!
I drove up from the South Bay for an SF SketchFest show and had an absolute blast!
Parking is easy — several garages nearby.
The walk in the TL between the garage and PianoFight is admittedly not so thrilling… Pretty sure I saw at least one sex worker and two drug deals in the block and a half I had to walk… But the second you walk into PF you get engulfed in good feels!
Service was awesome. Everyone I met was super friendly and funny and sweet. The mosaic logo above the bar — so good! The live music before the show? She was so talented! The cinnasweet potato fries? Delicious! The comedy? Hysterical!
I can’t wait to come again! So proud of my friend, too, for his involvement in such an awesome space!

Love this place. Awesome atmosphere, good food, and great staff.
I would recommend the sweet potato fries to any newcomers.

We enjoyed the experience as a whole, although the particular girl who sang on the open-​mic area before the show was not our style at all.
The beer my husband had was great and the fries different (curly form and very very fired) were ok. The prices were $ 6 (beer) and $ 5 (fries)
Now about the comedy show… We truly enjoyed it! It says that starts at 7.00 though it started 10 minutes later.
We were the only tourist on the audience and our english is far from being perfect BUT we had a great time!
The entrance costs $ 10 what is veeeery nice for a almost 2 hours show. Apparently, every time different comedians come by, so, you can come more than once during your stay in SF and never will be the same. Also, people kept coming even after 7.20 so do not worry if you are a bit late.

What a gem!
Comfy but sleek interior (both for ambiance and furnishings) and decent menu. The open mic night was a little more crowded than we expected but nice free entertainment.
Cocktail menu ok, but not worth $ 9 – 11 to me (not terribly strong, and strange flavor combos), but that’s true of most bars at that price point so I can’t hold it against them too much– just stick to your regular mixed drink or beer/​wine.
Food didn’t blow me away, but maybe I expected too much from reviews. I shared a burger and the fried chicken sandwich. Both solid for $ 11, but I would’ve expected some lettuce and tomato (or equivalent) on the burger– it was just meat, bun and condiments.
I do appreciate that they default to a side salad and let you sub curly fries (so many places are the other way around!). However, the curly fries tasted either like they were reheated or the bottom of the batch– only 3 curls in my serving, the rest broken bits.
Heat was also inconsistent– meals were ready to eat, but our polenta sticks were basically fried lava– we burned our mouths even after waiting for a while, and there wasn’t enough sauce :)
I’ll be back– this area sorely needs more places like this– but I might try some other items.

Came here for David Gerard’s Mind Reading Magic Show with a big group of friends and our minds were collectively blown! No, this isn’t your typical rabbit out of the hat or audience member getting sawed in half magic show. What you’ll get instead is a masterful display of David’s uncanny ability to bend your perception of reality AKA read your mind! Charming and full of quick-​witted humor, David had us on the edge of our seats the whole time. I also loved the intimate setting of the theater (around 50 – 80 seats?), which made the show all the more fun! Almost everyone in the audience had a chance to get involved in one of the «tricks.»
The fried chicken sandwich that they serve at the bar and restaurant in a separate space from the theater was moist on the inside and crispy on the outside deliciousness! Plan to come at least 1.5−2 hours ahead of the show if you plan on eating here though, the kitchen and waitstaff seemed overwhelmed by orders an hour before the show. It took almost 20 – 30 minutes for our food to come out. However, they were nice enough to hold the magic show for us until we were done eating since seating is first come first serve and eating isn’t allowed in the theater. They also had a live band playing in the restaurant/​bar area before the show, but I thought they could have turned it down just a notch. People at my table had to yell and scream in order to hear each other so it was pretty difficult to have a relaxing conversation.

A coworker and I came by to see The San Francisco Theater Pub’s Pint Sized Plays 5. It was Monday, August 24^th. The show started at 8pm, but we arrived around 7pm so we could grab seats. The show was free, but we signed up through Eventbrite (
). Turned out we didn’t really have to as they just carded us and let us walk in. We were able to grab one of the last open tables for our party of 3.
I had dinner and a glass of wine earlier, so I decided to stay with wine. They didn’t have a huge selection, so I went with the William Hill cabernet sauvignon, Napa, CA ($ 10). Did the trick as I just wanted one drink to last the entire night. It was only Monday after all.
The believe there are several different spaces inside PianoFight, but the show stayed in the front area with the bar, a small stage and about 8 – 10 tables with chairs. Kind of had a pub, small bar vibe. SF Theater Pub used the space wisely as it was interactive. They rarely used the stage except for one of the acts and introductions. Kept the performance intertwined with the audience.
I heard there’s an actual theatre inside PianoFight. Would love to come back and see a show in that space.

3.5 STARS for PianoFight but rounding up to 4 for being able to accommodate our large group of us who just came from Pandora around the corner.
At first, based from pictures, I wasn’t sure if PianoFight was a restaurant/​bar hybrid of some sort, but upon going in there, it was more lounge-​ish in terms of seating and structure of the room. The theater inside was restricted access but the outside lounge was very open and spacious so we could stand and chill with our drinks in hand.
Of course, things changed drastically as soon as the theater show is done and a mass of people emerges and immediately begins to slam the bar with food and drink orders. The kitchen already had taken 30 – 40 minutes just to get an order of curly fries to us so I feared the worst when the crowd showed up.
The woman singing that night was playing ukulele and had a very fine singing voice. It’s nice to hear a professional sing instead of yourself and your off key coworkers.
PianoFight does seem to have a wide range of shows and acts in that space on a weekly basis but since this location is in the Tenderloin, I usually won’t be in this area that often unless I’m st Pandora. I wouldn’t mind coming back but will probably keep the schedule in mind before arriving here.
Oh and this place doesn’t have great signage from the street so be sure to look for the street number otherwise you’ll walk right by it without knowing it!

It’s Friday night, you’ve had the longest week of work ever, you want to do something fabulous in the city but the thought of drinking/​socializing/​STANDING sounds exhausting. Cue PianoFight!
PianoFight is basically the perfect Friday night activity and yes, absolutely a MUST for date night. (YOOHOO boys scouring Unilocal for date night ideas!!). The venue itself is very hip and intimate feeling and they have different shows going on every hour in the back theatre. After your show you can meander over to the front bar/​stage, grab some very yummy drinks and delicious food. We watched the serious modern dance show at 8:00 pm and spent the rest of the night in the front listening to great live music and even managed to muster enough energy to get some dancing in as well. They just create a really welcoming, wholesome environment and you just feel… GOOD.
Highly recommend for your group of two, but also for larger groups as well. The surrounding tenderloin neighborhood seems a little dicey at first but it’s really a non-​issue.
PS. Bonus spot in the area is Mikkeler, you can stop there either before or after if you want to get some bar hopping in!

Chill place to grab a drink and listen to some music. Atmosphere was OK. Drinks were reasonable and the staff was nice.