Pagoda

Pagoda has the worst servers/bartenders I’ve ever experienced. They’re very rude.

I’m no Mariah, I sound more like Biz Markie and Tom DeLonge’s love child drowning so typically I prefer private room karaoke. But Pagoda has the BEST public karaoke vibes. The crowd is always really fun there.

The best bar you will ever go to in San Francisco

The bartenders are oddly and suspiciously selective about who they will and won't allow to sing, which seems influenced by how much money they think they can get out of you. There are two types of karaoke bar — open-stage bars and private room karaoke. Private room karaoke is what it sounds like and open-stage karaoke is a thunderdome, like open mic comedy. The staff here are strangely judgmental of people who take an open-stage mindset, and overly money-grubbing to the extent that I feel the opposite vibe of "for the love of the game" karaoke bars that I'm fond of. The audience I experienced was predominantly college kids celebrating something or another, and the staff seem to expect this demographic – with anything else being undesirable. So if you're a college kid with a group of friends who want to try karaoke for the first time this might be a decent option, but if you are someone who wants to actually *perform* I cannot recommend this venue at all.

First time in a open karaoke rather than booths, and I was very happy I went. Everybody was very supportive of each other, which was nice because I am very shy about singing in public and ended up singing A LOT, even a duet with a stranger. It was weekday so maybe that helped but if I'm in SF again at some point I definetily want to come again. I can't drink alcohol and they had nice ginger beer.

Nice place, great choices of songs, the service was great, the staff was friendly. We went on Sunday evening and it wasn’t crowded. In my opinion this place is much better that next one. We will return there for sure.