The Abbey

Very welcoming traditional pub in the Newington district of south Edinburgh. Nice atmosphere in comfortable surroundings with tv screens for the sport. Bar staff are very approachable and friendly, and also knowledgeable about the large selection of whiskys available, This pub does in fact advertise itself as a ‘whisky bar’. The beers are reasonably priced, and quality food is available from breakfast time onwards, at a competitive price. Clientele is very mixed, ranging from locals through students to tourists. Well worth a visit if you are in the Newington area.

I like it. A nice, friendly pub on South Clerk Street, with a typical but tasty selection of food and drink. I particularly enjoy the breakfast. There’s a good breakfast deal with toast and tea or coffee, which goes down a treat, particularly when I’ve woken up too late to get breakfast at the student halls (not an uncommon occurrence). I’ve also been once for dinner, and there’s a nice selection of dishes, all the things you’d expect, like fish and chips etc.
Staff members are friendly and helpful, prices are good, and the atmosphere is usually relaxed.

Great pub! Service is wonderful, with a handful of the staff being very knowledgeable about beer, cider, and whiskey. Food is very reasonably priced, particularly breakfast, and includes sizable portions. Additionally, the food taste great. By far my favorite pub in Edinburgh.

Within my 10 days in Edinburgh, I’ve came to Abbey Bar everyday. There were 30 of us here altogether, and I only heard great things from them all about the service, food, and beverages. I will definitely be back next time I make it to Scotland.

I was pleasantly surprised with the abbey, it was welcoming and cosy and great for some decent pub grub with reasonable prices and friendly staff. I would definitely recommend popping in if you haven’t already!

Am ersten Abend in Edinburgh — der Hunger treibt mich aus dem Guest House, Durst hab ich natürlich auch einen gewaltigen. So ein Reisetag ist ja anstrengend, wie ihr ja alle wisst. ;)
Auf meinem Streifzug habe ich dann «The Abbey» gefunden. Naja,“gefunden” ist zu viel gesagt, dieses Lokal liegt genau auf dem Weg in das City Centre.
Es gibt eine große Auswahl an Bieren und anderen Getränken. Natürlich dürfen gerade in Schottland da die Whiskies nicht fehlen. Und diese Whiskylist ist extrem umfangreich. Whiskies aus sämtlichen Regionen! Zusätzlich gibt es noch verschiedene «Whiskytouen»: Lowlands, Highlands, Speyside, Islay, Campbeltown, Islands: 3 Whiskys der Region a 25ml für 9£
Eine große und einfallsreiche Burgerauswahl (u.a. «Edinburger» mit Haggis und Cheddar) und weitere typische Pubgerichte werden zum Verzehr angeboten.
Der Service ist sehr freundlich und hilfreich, wirkt bei der Beratung sehr kompetent und hilft natürlich bei der Getränkeauswahl und erklärt diese.
Leider hatte ich nur so einen kurzen Aufenthalt in Edinburgh. Sonst wäre ich bestimmt häufiger hier eingekehrt. Besonders weil es hier für Edinburgher Verhältnisse eher preiswert war.

A traditional pub, with traditional pub cliental (older gentlemen looking at TV screens), The Abbey supplies a decent range of beers and spirits at very reasonable prices. The staff are friendly and fairly efficient, managing to deal well with busy friday pay day lunches or crowds of pub quiz goers.
The menu offered sticks more or less to the pub classics, but they are well done. I have eaten here a few times and while the presentation isn’t the best the food is heart, filling and tasty.
The Abbey is an old style pub, with good prices and a decent menu, all in all it is a decent choice for a few quiet pints or a pub lunch.

Cheap enough. Nice staff, sometimes a little slow. Food is pretty (their falafel burger is really weird though, don’t get that. I like their nachos) decent. Tables are really sticky.

Popped in here last night for a quick pint and ended up staying for several rounds, as we were pleasantly surprised by the place.
Yes the place is a bit worn-​in but its a proper pub and thats what I want when suppin my pint after work. The menu is extensive and the food that came out looked great. The bar staff and bar manager were friendly, as were the regulars propping up the bar. There are enough bars that get turned into generic cocktail, ikea inspired places around now and they have there place in my soialising calendar. I think this place will will be getting its fare share of my beer tokens when I want a proper pint in a old mans pub, which is most of the time when I am out after work to be fair. :D
Also cheapest pint of cider I have seen around the area £6 for 2 pints.

That’s the problem with Unilocal,even if a place changes completely it’s stuck with the old reviews.
It’s a fairly quiet, friendly pub with a fantastic whisky selection, tasty food in large portions, and the pub quiz seems to have been reinstated. I’m not sure when the current manager took over, but they seem to have fixed a lot of what people were complaining about.
Try the burgers.

Nothing special, but didn’t seem as bad as others make it out to be. Just a pub, filled with older people watching football. They’ve got a small real ale selection, and food.

I came here at the weekend for some post fringe festival hair of the dog after staying at my mates house. Its her local pub so nice and easy, plus it shows lots of football which pleased the Mr and our mates as the Killie game was on.
The pub itself is pretty big and split down the middle with bar on one side and seated bit on the other, despite the football having already started we managed to get a table for 5 right away. There are alot of tellies so watching the football was easy, although some of the tellies were so high up it was sore on your neck after a while. The clientele is a bit mixed with older folks, younger groups and the odd lone drinker.
As previously stated a hangover cure was on the cards, and that took the form of a pint of cider and blackcurrant and full English breakfast. A full English was advertised on the wall for under a fiver, and a ‘breakfast meal deal’ was also advertised but we were told that these were no longer available and the meals available were in the menu. We all still got a full English but it was about 7 quid, and my pint of cider was over 3 quid, which made my hangover feel worse! In saying this the full English was really good and pretty massive; beans, 2 hash browns, black pudding, a sausage, 2 rashers of bacon, 2 fried eggs, 2 bits of toast, fried mushrooms and a fried tomato. Would of been nice to get a smaller one at a cheaper price though as i had to leave some of it.
Really wasn’t impressed with the service in here, seemed like it was a bit of a hassle for the staff to serve us. Getting served initially didn’t take that long but i was waiting for quite a bit before my breakfast arrived, then as i tried to order drinks while eating my food i was told to go to the bar. I mean, fair enough if i had finished eating, but i was about a bacon rasher and 2 hash browns in! And i was served at my seat initially for food and drinks so whats wrong with me nooooow!!! (rant over!)
If you live round the corner and need a hangover cure or to watch the football then its not bad as a local pub. If not, I’d go somewhere else.

Its OK…
Went in with Dear Mother for something to eat and noticed that they’ve revamped the menu and tried to make it different from the usual microwave /​deep fried pub menu. I tried a burger which is usually a good watermark for pub food and it was a great slightly pink in the middle home made burger. The chips were your bog standard deep fried frozen ones though but lets face it, almost everyone does that…
Its still an ‘Old Mans Pub’ which is fair enough but the furniture is getting a bit chipped, wonky and bashed. The MAIN GRIPE though is the dirty windows! Seriously, has no one ever mentioned it? They are the DIRTIEST windows in the Southside, it distracted me till I left.
GOOD FOR: Better than average food at good prices.
BAD FOR: Drinkers who like to people watch out of windows…

I’ve only ever been to The Abbey on the one occasion, but then again the whole place failed to make a very positive impression on me. The pub itself is nice enough, though the shape of the bar can make things a bit cramped in here despite the fact that it is a fairly large pub.
My reason for coming here was because the Crags was showing the United game and we wanted to see the Arsenal game so at half time we left the Crags searching for a pub showing the latter game. The only pub we could reach in the half time break was this pub as they were showing both games here (which does count in their favour). I should also mention that they do have a good number of TV screens and I was impressed with the setup here.
What I wasn’t so impressed with and what put me off this pub were the prices of the drinks — I mean you can get so much cheaper in this area so unless you are in desperate need you are very unlikely to come here, although I guess this is just their way of keeping students out. As far as I can tell there isn’t enough on offer to justify the prices you have to pay.

From the outisde I thought this place looked awful. By day there are emaciated old men cowering in the porch, smoking and swearing about everything. By night it doesn’t get much better, only busier. I came here with some in my first year and we only lasted one drink because of the prices and the general boredom radiating from the ambiance.
Fair enough, it isn’t trying to market itself to students so it can’t really be criticised for its older clientele. Nonetheless, it just doesn’t offer much to those who aren’t locals looking for a drinking hole with friends. The menu looks alright with roast beef and plenty of burgers, but other than that there isn’t much to attract people out of their way.

The Abbey is located in the Newington area of Edinburgh, really close to the University, the student halls of residence and the Meadows so it should be really popular with the students. It’s not.
It is your typical average old man pub, with sleazy drunken men leering and jeering at every girl who walks in — not inviting. Inside The Abbey is really run down, with stains on the chairs and carpets and the floor is really sticky.
The only redeeming feature of The Abbey is the menu. It serves full English breakfasts for under five pounds, a wide selection of burgers and main meals for around six pounds. They also have a good range of snacks which are cheap and cheerful, around two pounds and are tasty, especially the potato wedges.
The Abbey no longer do their pub quizzes and just show football all the time instead — definitely not a place for a girls night out.

This is a really nice bar with a good atmosphere, plenty of tables to eat they serve food until late and have good offers on. I have the veggie chillie nachos for £4.50 though you can get them with just the salsa, sour cream and jalepenos and chees for £3.25 you got enough for three people and they were very tasty. The range of drinks is great with the range of whiskeys and prices lined up along a black board above the bar they also had a £2 special whiskey of the day. Had several cocktails (£3.95 a glass) all of which were really nice though the best was the sandy ryder the girls behind the bar really knew how to mix the drinks. Service was really friendly, lots of the days papers on the bar to read and 5 tvs to watch the sport Beer was well priced. The toliets were clean think this is the best bar on this street

I like pubs that would generally be classified as ‘old men pubs’ — I like thier quiet atmospheres, a place where conversations can be had over a pint of ale brewed in a farmers back yard.
The Abbey is an ‘old man pub’. However, its far from the idealised serenity of the type I enjoy during lazy sunday afternoons.
The bar itself is looking a bit scabby, and after the smoking ban stopped all smoking in pubs over Scotland, this place has had its tabacco smoke stench replaced by the smell of stale been and sweat. Yum.
The Abbey has absolutly none of that charm mentioned as a trait of old men pubs, in fact it has no atmosphere at all. Although football seems to be constantly on the TV’s, nobody watches it, and the sense of being in here for no other reason than to get drunk alone is a prevalent one.
This place is really not a place I would ever consider returning to.

I’m giving the Shabby two stars purely based on nostalgia.
I used to work here a few years ago before it went completely down the toilet (I left when glasses got thrown around one night and the ensuing mêlée spilled onto the street and some guy got his lip bitten off… I can still see our bouncer Tracy running in asking for a glass of ice to put the afore-​mentioned lip in… Jaysus)
But before that it used to be a cracking pub. Eric Pullin was the quizmaster there for NINE years before the current owner turfed him out for no good reason and as a result, lost himself several customers. Quiz nights on Thursdays were ace. As the Porn Dwarfs, we won quite a few times over the years, had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs and I do still have very fond memories of Karen and her staff.
But new guy: you suck, and so does the Shabby now. Hope you and those no-​hoper barflies are very happy together.

** Unilocal comes to the UK… Woot Woot **
This bar used to be awesome till the new management came in, took away the pub quiz and now just show football all night long. Never again will the Porn Dwarfs rock the pub quiz world with their superior intellect…

This bar is for people who like old-​fashioned simple pubs. I usually feel a bit uneasy going into this sort of place as it seems like a sort of locals bar, but in fact this pub is extremely welcoming and I didnt feel uneasy at all.
They also do food and I had a lunch here taking advantage of their 2 meals for a special price offer. They serve all the usual sort of bar food and what I had was nice. The pub shows a lot of sporting events so this is good place to catch the football if thats what you like.
Overall this is just a simple old style bar a little bit out of the centre of town where you can relax with a pint when you are feeling a bit bored of the more cosmopolitan bars.