Where to open an Asian fusion restaurant.. (Pittsburgh, Carnegie: middle-class, transplants)

[jay5835]

Crafton would be a good spot. Julie would love to have Thai food in her neighborhood.

[gg]

If the restaurant is good, it could go a lot of places. There was a very good authentic Thai restaurant in Verona for years and it did very well and then they move back to Thailand. If it was me, I would look at Fox Chapel Plaza, I think Patron will fold and that would be a total winner of a location. Next would be Blawnox. That are can draw from the 20% plus Asians in that region, not to mention the residents in the area that are dying for something good to open up. If you don't want the nearby burbs, you could look around Morningside or East Liberty. There is a pretty good Asian fusion restaurant in Highland Park at the moment.

Hope the do it. We need a good place. Aspinwall would also be good, but hard to get into.

[midwest1]

Wow, thanks all for the feedback..an awful lot of info! Btw, I lived in Korea for almost twenty years and my friend is Indonesian, but we met in Korea...sooo the Indonesian-Korean thing wouldn't be a gimmick, it'd just reflect what we are. Might be the first ever Korean-Indonesian place in America...as far as I know. And gg, love your advice, the restaurant will be VERY VERY good...so I suppose it could indeed go a lot of places.

[minthotchocolate]

Why, East Liberty of course. It's pretty clear. The old BRGR site is vacating and calls for equally good replacement.

I'd love it to be in Point Breeze, it may bring the right vibe to the business district. But it may not be the best place. So I vote for EL.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by jay5835

Crafton would be a good spot. Julie would love to have Thai food in her neighborhood.

The Crafton area already has a Thai-Cambodian restaurant, Ankgor, in the Noble Manor shops.


Not to say there isn't room for more cuisine from the orient in that area.

[PghYinzer]

I vote Brookline because it's where I live. However we have a newly renovated commercial district and it's close to Mt. Lebo and Dormont. Also, Brookline has a food tour (Brookline - Burgh' Bits & Bites Food Tours- Burgh' Bits & Bites Food Tours) so that could def help get the word out on your new business. Rents are definitely going to be cheaper since we are an often overlooked neighborhood.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by minthotchocolate

Why, East Liberty of course. It's pretty clear. The old BRGR site is vacating and calls for equally good replacement.

I'd love it to be in Point Breeze, it may bring the right vibe to the business district. But it may not be the best place. So I vote for EL.

Point Breeze actually sounds like a good recommendation. Pino's probably gets a healthy chunk of their business as overflow from people who don't want to wait at Point Brugges, just down Reynolds.

Instead of having only two contemporary Italian restaurants anchoring the business district I think an Asian fusion restaurant would certainly do well. If I'm not mistaken Point Breeze (south of Penn) has the highest median household income in the entire city due to the paucity of rentals coupled with sky-high housing prices, and it's very close to a high Asian and Asian-American population in Squirrel Hill. Pittsburgh is still a city where the vast majority of people own a car and drive to run errands, so you'd easily be able to pull people in from Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, East Liberty, Highland Park, and Regent Square to Reynolds Street for some good food.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by PghYinzer

I vote Brookline because it's where I live. However we have a newly renovated commercial district and it's close to Mt. Lebo and Dormont. Also, Brookline has a food tour (Brookline - Burgh' Bits & Bites Food Tours- Burgh' Bits & Bites Food Tours) so that could def help get the word out on your new business. Rents are definitely going to be cheaper since we are an often overlooked neighborhood.

^ Another good bet. One bad thing about minthotchocolate's Reynolds Street recommendation would be that the rent would likely be exorbitant. Brookline has a lot of educated 30-somethings who are craving some good food besides pizza/Chinese/PitaLand. I think Brookline Boulevard would be a great place. Your nearest competition for good Asian food would probably be My Thai (Thai) and Mekong (Chinese) in Dormont. I can't think of a single Pan-Asian Fusion concept restaurant in the South Hills, actually. Maybe Mt. Lebanon has one?

I think Squirrel Hill is already saturated with Asian-themed restaurants, personally, along Forbes & Murray Avenues. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but whenever we want to do a date-night at the Manor Theatre in Squirrel Hill I always think to myself "then do we want pizza or Asian for dinner?" The fact that people in other East End neighborhoods, like us, already associate Squirrel Hill with Asian cuisine means that it's saturated for that genre and would probably benefit from something different. I can think of at least a half-dozen pizzerias and a half-dozen Asian restaurants there off the top of my head.

Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield has Feng (Japanese); Wei Wei (Chinese); China House (Chinese); Thai Cusine (Thai); and Thai Gourmet (Thai). As much as I'd like to think a hybrid restaurant concept would work on Liberty Avenue I drive by a newer restaurant, Adolfo's (Venezuelan/Italian), every night and rarely see anyone eating there, unfortunately. Not sure if an Indonesian/Korean restaurant would suffer the same fate of limited business.

I like the Penn Avenue in Garfield recommendation. Garfield I think is really going to surprise people with how rapidly it gentrifies over the next 5-10 years. It's surrounded by wealthier areas. We have lesbian friends who bought a house on Dearborn Street a few years ago, and I envy them because their house will probably be worth twice what they paid for it in a decade. The long-standing construction project is almost finished, and the new streetscape already looks awesome. People's (Indian) and Spak Brothers (Pizza) are the two primary restaurants serving Garfield right now since Quiet Storm (vegan coffeehouse), Salt (upscale), and Verde (Mexican-ish) all unfortunately went out of business on the East Liberty end. There's definitely potential for a Pan-Asian Fusion concept restaurant there.

Butler Street in Lawrenceville has become the city's latest "restaurant row" of sorts. I'm amazed by how busy many restaurants there are at "off"-hours, too. I'm a courier and picked up a lunch order from Smoke BBQ Taqueria the other day and thought it would be well past the typical weekday lunch rush. To my surprise there was a wait for seating. A good Asian fusion restaurant in Lawrenceville does have the potential to draw in drivers from other communities, too. Neighbors of mine in Polish Hill rave over Pusadee's Garden (Thai), and that's quite a hike from here, as it's in the "Upper" part of Lawrenceville. I'd imagine opening in Upper Lawrenceville may draw in people from not only the rest of Lawrenceville but also from across the bridge in places like Aspinwall and Fox Chapel. Upper Lawrenceville (northeast of Stanton Avenue) would command cheaper rents on Butler Street than in the lower sections.

Here's a sleeper suggestion, too. What about Morningside? Not sure what's available in terms of retail space there currently; however, Morningside and adjacent Stanton Heights have very little in terms of dining options within close proximity. Many of my food delivery clients live in Morningside and Stanton Heights for that reason---not wanting to venture back to East Liberty or Lawrenceville for grub after a long day of work. If you could open an Asian Fusion concept restaurant somewhere near the Rite-Aid on Greenwood Street you may be surprised at the support from the neighborhood, which is becoming increasingly younger and affluent, and especially among the older demographic if you offered local delivery. I'm sure theta_sigma would stumble down on the hill from Stanton Heights to try out a location there, too, if the food was good, and I'm sure eschaton would check you out.

Another possibility is to consider the "no-man's land" of the few blocks of Penn Avenue between the heart of the Strip District and Doughboy Square in Lower Lawrenceville. A site somewhere near Penn & 28th would complement Klavon's Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor nicely for a "dinner and dessert" date, and the added bonus is that a site here would likely have ample parking. The Strip District's population is growing rapidly, and Apple will be opening a new office in this "no-man's land" of the Upper Strip District. Uber already has an office there, too. Polish Hill, where I live, is becoming increasingly affluent, and we don't have a single restaurant. We're too small (~1,300 residents), though, to support your concept, but I know my partner and I would walk down to the Upper Strip for some good food. A lot of people in our neighborhood work very non-traditional hours and don't often have time to cook (another reason why our delivery service does a lot of business in Polish Hill, like Morningside/Stanton Heights).

[Sciulli]

so you specifically asked about a neighborhood in transition. Wilkinsburg could fit the bill. They just recently passed a referendum during the past election to allow sales of alcohol at restaurants. A little pizza/sub shop called Salvatore's just got the first liquor license and served their first beer last week.

If you could set up shop along Penn Ave, they get 50,000 cars passing through every day.

contact the Wilkinsburg CDC if you have questions:
HOME - Wilkinsburg Community Development Corporation

[analog808]

I do like Highland Park and the "no-man's" land idea on Penn Avenue. Just not too far away from the activity centers. You don't want to lose customers because they don't feel like walking that far. But I really wish you consider Cranberry. 50 restaurants, but mostly chains. We never get excited about eating out in Cranberry -- still end up going to the city to eat out.

Quite honestly, there is some pretty good Thai in the Pittsburgh region. I would love Indonesian and Korean. We need more of that! Or better yet, an authentic Filipino restaurant.

I would also consider Craig Street in Oakland. You have a lot of the CMU and Pitt student and employees. There are some decent restaurants there, but they could use more!