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Arts and Entertainment

L.A.'s Most Popular Gay Bar Gets The Reality TV Treatment

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The Abbey has long been L.A.'s most popular gay bar, bringing in scores of gays, lesbians and bachelorette parties every weekend for nights of drinking, dancing and ogling ripped bartenders. Nestled on a popular corner of West Hollywood, right next to Lisa Vanderpump's PUMP restaurant, it was only a matter of time before The Abbey got a reality show of its own.

What Happens At the Abbey premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on E! The show promises every bit as much drama as the Real Housewives, only if its cast members dated each other.

The show follows the lives of the bar’s comely employees (including women!) as they party, fight, bone and get sloppy. So says Abbey employee and cast member Elizabeth: "The Abbey absolutely is a soap opera, which basically means there's a lot of fighting and a lot of f--king!"

Of his bar’s ongoing success, The Abbey’s David Cooley, who appears in the show and has owned the bar for 26 years, tells LA Weekly his bar is not only a safe haven for queer people, it’s an “inclusive place where everybody is welcome, too.”

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“I love that it’s mostly outside and open. It’s Southern California. So many other gay bars were behind closed doors in WeHo. I wanted to be open and be proud of who we were.”

Check out a tease of the show below via People. There’s perhaps a bit too much straight drama in this clip for a show about an ostensibly gay bar for our taste. But let’s be honest, who are we to resist, especially with quotes like “Billy is an OK kisser, but his breath smells like protein shakes”?

Related:
52 Essential Gay Bars And Nights Around Los Angeles
Los Angeles' 10 Most Essential LGBTQ Bars And Clubs

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