Bistro for Market Square (Pittsburgh, Liberty: restaurants, price, bus)

[nuwaver88]

French bistro set for Market Square

The buildings owner had several inquiries about putting a bar/restauarant in there, which Downtown needs as opposed to trendy, which it has in abundance. However, the owner saw differently. Nevertheless, it will be a nice addition and is better than a vacancy.

[Burghgirl17]

Happy to see something go into this space and here's to hoping they have a reasonable lunch menu and better service than 1902 I have heard that Elements (nearby in the old Palomino's) is pretty pricey and has small portions, so hopefully this new venture will go for the more mid-priced lunch audience.

Tavern 245, a few blocks away, has been a welcome addition to the bar/restaurant scene.

[BrianTH]

Personally, I think this is perfect. Since it is New Orleans-themed, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest they will serve drinks. Generally, while that theme can be a bit trendy, it can also be very accessible, and can appeal to young people, tourists, and so on.

Hopefully the pricing isn't too bad, at least for some items--the aforementioned Tavern 245, for example, is a pretty nice place, but I personally thought the pricing was also quite reasonable. It would be great to have more nice-but-reasonable places like that spreading into the Market Square area (or the Diamond, as I am thinking of it these days)--I also have high hopes for the new Penn Avenue Fish Company location, which is going in next to the Courthouse Tavern on the 300 block of Forbes.

[pman]

in the end, "trendy fad" or cool new restaurant will be determined by the quality of the food IMO. it doesn't sound like they're gonig to rip out the bar so I agree with brian, this will be a restaurant/bar.this is a big improvement

install specially designed doors that will open into the square.

I suspect this will not be the last new restaurant to move into market sq.

[BrianTH]

By the way, silver star to pman for calling this one (more or less predicting a french bistroesque place for this space--it would have been a gold star if not for failing to mention the New Orleans theme).

Edit: Oh, and I would agree this is likely to be the first in a wave. The Market Square renovations, with widened sidewalks, are very conducive to restaurants, and in general conducive to a lot more pedestrian traffic. And down the road you have all sorts of new residential plans in the area, plus the new T station at Gateway . . . in fact while I know this has been a rough period for some of the existing restaurants, driving some out of business entirely, I have to say I think it is time for some new places.

[pman]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

By the way, silver star to pman for calling this one (more or less predicting a french bistroesque place for this space--it would have been a gold star if not for failing to mention the New Orleans theme).

Edit: Oh, and I would agree this is likely to be the first in a wave. The Market Square renovations, with widened sidewalks, are very conducive to restaurants, and in general conducive to a lot more pedestrian traffic. And down the road you have all sorts of new residential plans in the area, plus the new T station at Gateway . . . in fact while I know this has been a rough period for some of the existing restaurants, driving some out of business entirely, I have to say I think it is time for some new places.

where's the blush icon?

[greg42]

This should be pretty cool. It's a prime spot on the square; I think it probably made sense that the building owner held out for something a bit more than what used to be in there.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

The Market Square renovations, with widened sidewalks, are very conducive to restaurants, and in general conducive to a lot more pedestrian traffic.

I wish all of downtown could have wider sidewalks. I don't think I've been to another US city whose CBD had such narrow sidewalks. Of course, I could be misremembering.

[Blackbeauty212]

Thing is you have to remember Downtown Pittsburgh is very dense partly because the rivers put the squeeze on the land as they come together. Pittsburgh is not the only city..even Philly has some narrow sidewalk along Walunt Chestnut and Arch streets in Center City...Boston is another one. These old Northeastern Cities outside of NYC have some very narrow sidewalks.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by jay5835

I wish all of downtown could have wider sidewalks. I don't think I've been to another US city whose CBD had such narrow sidewalks. Of course, I could be misremembering.

You are not misremembering (this is not totally unique, but it is outside modern standards). Downtown's streets were mostly laid out and developed long ago, well before cars existed, and there just isn't enough room between the buildings to provide both car lanes and decent-sized sidewalks. There have been some street-widening projects over time, but that requires demolishing buildings.

Still, I personally think there are a few streets Downtown that could lose some car lanes, like Stanwix and Liberty, and maybe Boulevard of the Allies (Grant, which completes that circuit, probably can't lose any lanes). I'd like to see some of that space used for bus (and maybe streetcar) lanes, but you could probably incorporate wider sidewalks into such a redesign as well.