We all know the Strip District is one of the crown jewels of the City of Pittsburgh. Let's talk about some of its most iconic spots:
Pennmac - beloved for a reason, but you are walking into an absolute buzzsaw on a Saturday morning. Carbs are the enemy but this place is one of the good ones
Roland's - ideal pre-pirates game spot to have a beer and watch people buy knockoff t-shirts; Roland's gets a lot of personal cache for being a friendly twitterer and having a 2nd floor outdoor bar. I think the lobster rolls here are a little too buttered for my tastes
The original Primanti's - Primanti brothers gets a bad rap from area hipsters who practically fall over themselves to tell you there's somewhere better. Shout out to the original, your sandwich being featured on every nationally broadcast Steeler game is just another reminder that we're better than Cleveland
Wholey's fish market - love this place; any Lawrenceville resident will tell you that the local Shop 'n' Save is a dump so I love to get my grocery shopping done here. Lobster rolls are dope. Love the bear mascot out front, Bill
Luke Wholey's fish restaurant - I have never eaten here and don't even want to hazard a guess at how the father-son dynamic in the Wholey family works here, but I will say this, if the kid uses his dad's fish, it can't be all too bad
The stores that sell knockoff pittsburgh sports merch - I count four among the same class of pittsburgh sports merchandise store (thinking 'Yinzers in the burgh', 'pgh sports', 'black n gold forever'). coming up with the names actually brings up a good point, other than yinzers i don't think any of them are very clear on what they like to be called. function of hanging "you're in steeler country" banners everywhere I guess. I'm sure I like some of these stores more than others but aesthetically you're not going to be able to tell the difference just walking by. "Cleveland Still Sucks - Feel the Pittsburgh Steel" is an alltime classic 'burgh shirt
Albert's gifts - this place is a largely unknown giant warehouse type store for pittsburgh fan stuff that technically probably isn't even part of the strip district - its just past 30th street - and man is it awful. I made my sister walk there once before going to a pirates game and it is uniformly bad merchandise and league official merchandise, meaning it's expensive and undesirable. They also seem to keep bizarre hours which is always a minus
Mike Feinberg Co - ostensibly a party store, this is one of my favorite places to get stupid Pittsburgh shit as gifts. My work is having a white elephant noon christmas party on account of cutbacks following the great recession and you can bet some humorless drone is getting a stillers tchotchke from this joint
gaucho - never been but i literally read on twitter that someone named it a top 100 restaurant in the world. lines out the door every time i walk by. incredible
altar bar - i love any building in pittsburgh that is basically a repurposed church; that being said i don't know if i can get down with the kind of musical acts they are wont to book. in the spirit of keep pittsburgh weird i guess its a good thing
bradley books - i bought an ugly christmas tie (ugly sweaters aren't cool anymore) for legitimately $1 dollar here last weekend. i haven't read a book in a couple months. i'm actually going to try to find a cleveland browns sweater for a work ugly sweater contest, gotta stay relevant
deluca's - never been, going to try to make it out there this weekend. ridiculous lines out the door all day every weekend day. i don't think the upside of breakfast food allows for this place not to be overrated, that said
pamela's - have had this place requested by name by friends from ohio. ridiculous reach, got to love the look of this place. crepe pancakes aren't really my thing coach. big fan of leaving a mini coffeepot to anyone who orders coffee
kelly-o's - never been here either, i might just not be a breakfast guy. they have some pretty extreme boasts painted on their wall
kaya - i think kaya is pretty legit but i think when i learned they were under the umbrella of mad mex/steel cactus that they lost a few points by association
club zoo - ive never been and i don't know if its even a place anymore but the stories i heard in high school were pretty hilarious so its a +
prestogeorge - a bit off the beaten path but their coffee beans are what's up
mancini's - sometimes i like to think of myself as a schroedyinzer's cat, at once both mancini's and cellone's are my favorite places to buy bread in the city of pittsburgh
beerhive - one of the only bars you could really go to in the strip district on a weekend night and it's perfectly serviceable as a dive. won $30 in bar bucks at a trivia night one time. pickleback shots are a great idea
lefty's - never been but a girl once told me that it turned into a 'black' bar. left handed people should probably stop passing that gene along, clearly better to be a righty
wigle whiskey - pretty expensive for what it is but feels like a good gift... gave it to a friend in ohio as a birthday present once and he pretended he didn't like it. clevelanders have such an inferiority complex..
spaghetti warehouse - another borderline not ever associated with the strip district but close to wigle so story time. when i was a ~6 year old kid my parents took me to dinner at a spaghetti warehouse and on the way out i pulled the fire alarm to see what would happen. apparently the restaurant gets fined for a false alarm when something like that happens
marty's market - in the same general region as the last two places; smallman street blah location that you'd maybe never bump into. never been but it gets a lot of hype when people are literally cued by the memory that it exists
the comic book store at either the beginning or the end of the strip depending on your perspective - comic books are for children
mcdonalds - can i really get a free coffee at mcdonalds every monday?
la prima espresso - borderline king of the city. so much hype. i like the act of ordering a doppel. great ethnic feel all around but i must say..
21st street coffee & espresso - the g.o.a.t. so expensive but so good. you will spend upwards of $3.50 on a small black coffee made from african beans that takes at least 5 minutes to prepare on a slow day b/c of the pour over method & it will be the best coffee you've ever had. wonderfully hipsterish and a little bit ridiculous. the kind of place you can buy art off the walls at
pittsburgh public market - an absolute juggernaut; if taken as a single entity it may be the mvp of the strip. you've got a microbrew, a juice stand, the best taco in pittsburgh (la palapa, the restaurant so nice they named it twice), an aggressively friendly dedicated olive oil guy, kombucha, custom wood everything, weird arts n crafts store, ohio city pasta, and so much more. sucks to learn they will be booted out by their landlord in april; being a hippie doofus aint cheap
grown & sexy II - undoubtedly the best edition of the 'burgh's weird habit of giving businesses the surname 'II', grown & sexy is a bar that i've never seen open and recently put up a 'for rent' sign. only the good die young
go steelers
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