It is difficult to avoid an obvious pun when discussing a bar named C Bobby’s Owl Tree. So let’s get it out of the way. This place is a hoot.

Right at the edge of Union Square and the Tenderloin – “The Gateway to the Tenderloin” if you will – The Owl Tree is open only Wednesday through Saturday and only from around 5:00 pm to close which is usually at 11:30 pm or too early for a night owl. Bobby, a dapper gentleman in the white shirt and tie behind the bar, is the proprietor and doubles as the drink provider.

The place has a small but spotless red top bar, a few tables, a nice jukebox and, despite the area, friendly clientele. Martinis are favorites. At happy hour, Bobby delivers a basket of salty snacks to enjoy with your beverage. A wet nap is provided to clean your hands after munching. Talk about attention to detail.

As you settle back to enjoy your beverage, some strange karma seems to take possession of the bar on your first visit. It is not that you are on the fringe of one of San Francisco’s scariest neighborhoods. It is not that at any moment one of San Francisco’s unique characters could walk in the door. It is not that you might be spotted at the Owl. It is the presence of owls. Thousands of them.

The bar has a parliament of owl paraphernalia looking down at you. Stuffed owls. Prints of owls. Paintings of owls. Stained glass owls. Salt and peppershakers shaped like owls. Owl table tents. It seems that Bobby inherited his late mother’s collection of owl – I guess – stuff and made it the focal point of the bar. With many tourists in Union Square visiting The Owl Tree, owl likenesses have arrived from all around the world to find a nesting place in Bobby’s bar.

Still, the talk in the bar is almost always about San Francisco: from politics, to the decline in city services, to the price of gasoline, to the rising crime rate in the area. But whether anyone can agree on the topic of the day, C Bobby’s Owl Tree is one bar where “the eyes have it.” – D. M.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Bobby C went to the big nest in the sky. The bar was sold, closed, redone and reopened by new ownership. Though retaining the Owl Tree name, all of the owls that were part of the bar have flown the coop. The bar is a bit sterile without the avian atmosphere, but it is clean and not a bad stop as a Tenderloin bar goes.