One type of attraction we haven't covered much of on this site has been abandoned locations.
This is mostly by design as we are not comfortable recommending readers to trespass, break-in, or perform illegal activities in order to check a spot out. (Likewise, we do not do these ourselves either).
But at Yellow Dog Village in Worthington, PA (near Kittanning), with advanced permission and payment, you can visit an abandoned site that is quite the interesting spot to see!
Anyone who has spent some time in Pittsburgh knows of the raging debate between Mineo's and Aiello's pizza in Squirrel Hill. Both have die hard followings behind them, and are the kind of places you hear coming up in favorite pizza shop lists time and time again.
We ordered Mineo's with great excitement (after a very long gap since our last visit when we lived in Squirrel Hill), and we've got to say, we were really let down.
Aiello's is a popular pizza shop in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood that has a rather die-hard following behind it. Throw in a customer rivalry with neighboring pizza shop, Mineo's, and you have the makings of a great spot to visit.
We used to frequent Aiello's often when we lived in Squirrel Hill, and despite a fairly large gap in our visit history, I finally made it back in for a few slices!
We first had pierogies from the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church at the Pittsburgh Pierogi Festival. We had heard the glory of the church's famed dumplings, but never quite made it happen until fate intervened and put us all at the same festival.
It was truly love at first bite.
When we visited the church's table at the festival they were handing out cards for their Christmas pierogi sale, and we knew we would have to return to buy more- and that we did!
Pittsburgh is a stunning city, there is no doubt about that.
In being such a beautiful city, odds are good you'll want to get out and grab some photos for your personal use or social media sites like Instagram.
To help you find some of the city's most stunning spots, we teamed up with Ron Lewis Alfa Romeo in Cranberry (the only Alfa Romeo dealer in the area) to take out one of their Stelvio SUVs for a spin to visit some of our favorite Pittsburgh Instagram friendly destinations. The Alfa Romeo Stelvio starts around $41,000 and will be available soon in the Quadrifoglio version which is a race car quality line with over 500 horsepower and can hit 0-60mph in under four seconds.
In this one we share the destinations we visited on our tour around the city plus a few more that you absolutely must check out when shooting for the ‘gram!
This post is sponsored in part by Ron Lewis Alfa Romeo.
All opinions and recommendations below are our own.
At this time, we do not know if Jingle Bar will be returning for the 2023 holiday season.
Pop-up bars are becoming a trend now for seemingly every major holiday, and the Christmas season features several around Pittsburgh
One of these bars is Jingle Bar, a pop-up located just east of Market Square (now in South Side Works for 2022). We visited this one during its 2018 run and share our thoughts on if it is worth your time for a festive libation!
*Note: As we visited during a previous season, some of the below may have changed.
When it comes to Frank Lloyd Wright masterpieces in southwest Pennsylvania, odds are good you know of the iconic Fallingwater house. But did you know that Wright was also commissioned for a house just a few miles down the roads for friends of the Kaufmann family?
This house is Kentuck Knob- a large, Usonian house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built for the Hagan family (of local ice cream fame).
The Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel is located in the historic (and architecturally unique) Fulton Building in downtown Pittsburgh.
The building was constructed in 1906, financed by Henry Phipps (namesake of Phipps Conservatory), converted to the Renaissance Hotel in 2001, and named to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
From its unique arch on the outside to the beautiful rotunda and luxurious rooms on the inside, it doesn't take long to understand why this particular hotel is one of the most popular in the city.
The Carnegie Museums in Oakland have an annual dinner series known as FEAST which is a themed a dining experience in conjunction with a current exhibit. During the Carnegie International (running until March 2019), the museum is hosting three unique dinners in order to celebrate topics being presented during the flagship exhibition.
The first dinner was themed after the topic Beauty and hosted by Kate Romane from Black Radish Kitchen- a popular pop-up restaurant that is known for being highly sought after and almost impossible to get a seat at (we've yet to get in ourselves!).
I was invited to check out the dinner series as a guest of the museum, and share the experience of the dinner series in this one!
Chick'n Bubbly is a Korean fried chicken and bubble tea joint located in the heart of Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood.
While chicken and bubble tea are the two stars of the menu, this fast service restaurant also has a number of Japanese sides including menchi katsu and takoyaki to name a few.
I visited this one after hearing rave reviews from friends and was not disappointed.