MrFlyerFanatic wrote:

Hello All,
My wife an I have been attending A10 tournaments since Philadelphia in 1999 and will be making the trip to your fine city next month.  We'll be arriving on Wednesday and staying thru the finals.  We have made some trips to follow our Flyers, but have never spent any extended time in the city.  We are staying at the Double Tree on Bigelow.
I'm looking for expert advice on the following:
Local breakfast place.  A greasy spoon where we can get a pile of eggs, bacon, and potatoes to lay a base for a full day of hoops.
A good sports bar.  Someplace to watch the west coast games and catch up on highlights with reasonable beverage prices.
A good pizza place where we can grab food between sessions.
A nice place for dinner on Saturday that isn't too expensive, but has a nice wine and cocktail selection. 

For reference, we're in our mid-40s.  Not into the club scene.  Piano bars are more our speed.

Thanks for you help and we'll see you on March 8th.

 

Hey buddy, I live right down the street and am a big foodie and love sports, should be able to help.

Breakfast:

Delucas in the strip district. One of the most famous and long standing establishments in pghs strip district, which consists of local shops, restaurants, markets, and specialty food suppliers. A must visit and 5 minutes from your hotel.

http://mdelucasdinercom.spmd.mobit

Nadines in pittsburghs southside. Also about five minutes from your hotel. Pghs southside (where I live)is where the majority of Duquesne and Pitt students live and it boasts the main nightlife drag of Pittsburgh, east Carson street. 25 blocks of bars, restaurants, and shops. Tons of things to do there and again like the strip district, the type of place where you can park and spend the day walking around. Nadines is the ultimate greasy spoon with cheap drinks but also ridiculously good, home cooking style food. The place was on diners drive ins and dives with guy feiry or however you spell it. A personal favorite.

http://www.nadinesbar.com

Pamela's in Oakland is also very good, not as much stuff to do around it though, Pitts campus is here About five minutes from your hotel.

http://www.pamelasdiner.com

Sports bars: again have to recommend the southside, it is literally THE place to go for this type of thing. The three I will list here are some of the biggest, most well known/meet your criteria and they are all in walking distance of one another. Carson City Saloon, Marios, Fat heads. If you are looking for unique sandwiches and enormous portions go to fat heads. There are many other good places you will see walking to these establishments, but these are my personal favorites. Southside is also a straight shot from the arena. Very quick and easy to get back and forth. All of these places have tons of seating and tvs.

http://www.fatheadspittsburgh.com/phone/index.html

http://www.mariospgh.com

http://www.carsoncitysaloon.com


Pizza place:
Milanos Pizza. Hands down. Literally across the street from the arena. Very very good pizza and Italian food. Big restaurant split in half by traditional family seating and the other half is a large, full bar with lots of tvs. There are some other restaurants right around the arena but this best fits your description and has the best foot in my opinion, reasonable prices too. You want the 1304 5th avenue location.

http://pizzamilano.net

Saturday Dinner:

I would say go down to market square big open square in the heart of downtown with a bunch of places that fit your description with things to kind of walk around and see as well. Another 5 minute drive from your hotel.

http://www.marketsquarepgh.com


Feel free to direct message me if you have any other questions, hope you enjoy Pittsburgh!

Last edited by Duques102 (2/21/2017 2:31 pm)

pizza milano's is the go-to place for students. its open all night, it's got some TVs in the bar area, its about a block up the street from the arena. but it won't be overloaded with students (unless if the visitors hit it up heavily)

i usually hear pamela's in oakland and/or the strip district is a solid place for breakfast. has all your common fix-ins.

nicer dinners? well, i'm broke so my advice won't do much. tako, meat and potatoes, olive with a twist, are all names i hear come up a lot. somebody help me out on that one

i'm heavily biased but my favorite sports bar is Piper's Pub, but that's a soccer bar so that won't help you much. primantis is typical and very yinzer. Redbeards downtown, Carson City Saloon in Southside, Silky's in Squirrel Hill should all do the trick

source: i go to school here.

Duques102 wrote:

Dukes2012 wrote:

The two most popular breakfast places (commonly pictured on the food network) are Pamela's and DeLuca's. They are both great, but be prepared to wait.

There is a good pizza place right down the street from the arena called milanos.

Some of my favorite downtown restaurants are butcher and the rye, emporio, NOLA, sienna mercado, and penn ave. fish company.

If you aren't in to the crazy bar scene, avoid east Carson street. This is the street where Joey porter and Darrelle revis recently got in trouble.

 
Keep in mind these incidents occurred at 2:40 am. Southside during the day is a fun/borderline family type atmosphere and has a lot to see. It does get to be somewhat of a s***show very late at night however

Very true. I am a fan of the SS works area, specifically Hofbräuhaus. That's my number one recommendation to people visiting the city, but this gentlemen said he's more in to cocktails than beer.

ElDuque wrote:

The Red Ring (Duquesne campus), and if you want a celebrity-owned sports bar, there's Jerome Bettis' Grille 36 by the stadia and Hines Ward's Table 86 in Cranbury.

If you want some really different, try the Hofbrauhaus. REAL German food. Couple miles east of Station Square. My wife and I never miss it when we visit.


 

The pretzels and beer cheese are incredible!

MrFlyerFanatic wrote:

Thanks All,
What's the story on Cherries Diner on Forbes?
It came up when I googled greasy spoon breakfast.
It had one really bad review from someone that sounded a bit like a snob which makes me think it's a good local place.

 
From what I heard, very average, as many good reviews as bad. I parked cars at the Fairmont hotel while at Duquesne and that's where we sent people looking for breakfast because it was close. If it's a true greasy spoon you desire I would say go to nadines, it really is awesome.

Of course if Dayton is eliminated early ...

It'll be like a home game for us. He said, sadly.

MrFlyerFanatic wrote:

ElDuque wrote:

Of course if Dayton is eliminated early ...

We stay for the duration.  
When GW and St. Joe played in the finals in Cincinnati in 2005, there were dozens of people in attendance.  That was embarrassing, 

I used to go to the games in Philly years ago. Dayton has good fans (and an excellent program). Understand I'm just busing your chops. I wish I could be in Pittsburgh for the tournament. Unfortunately Duquesne MBB does not justify the trip.

president wrote:

Hoping that one day DU MBB will be at least a semblance of what the Flyers are today. Would readily settle for that right now. From my current vantage point, I can't even see that far into the future!

UD had our darkest days in the pre-A10 early 90s (when I was in school).  Jim O'Brian nearly destroyed the program before Oliver Purnell resurrected it.  My junior and senior years we went 4-26 and 6-21 highlighted by an exhibition loss to Marathon Oil and once winning the opening tip and scoring at the wrong basket.  How that clown went on to make millions coaching the Boston Celtics, I have no idea.
It sounds like Harper needs to find a program builder like Oliver Purnell.  Too bad John Miller only had 2 sons.
Harper is a good guy.  My neighbor's son was on a lot of sports teams with his boys.  It's his first go around as an AD, so I can't speak to those abilities, but he is a high character individual.  
Keep the faith!

http://www.onlyinyourstate.com/pennsylvania/pittsburgh/unsuspecting-restaurants-pittsburgh/

Here you go, Flyer boy.

Thank you ElDuque.  We started investigating our meal schedule over the weekend.

Don't let Connie Swail near the debauchery.