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Weekend Cover Story: Dining through the decades
Friday, December 17, 1999 By Woodene Merriman, Post-Gazette Dining Critic
Oh, how we ate.
We had oyster patties. We had O Dogs. Red sauce by the gallon. Fries on the sandwiches. The bustle of Market Square. The view from Mount Washington. And the nice thing is, we still do. It's been a wondrous century for dining in Pittsburgh. And you can still soak up a lot of history with your meal at any number of establishments that dish out a uniquely Pittsburgh flavor. Here's the menu - decade by decade.
1902 Tavern was Dimling Brothers Bar and Restaurant, a German restaurant, when it opened on Market Square. After 1960, it had many names, including Cheshire Cat and Crazy Quilt. When Jeff Joyce took over and reopened it in 1982, it became 1902 Landmark Tavern -- for the date he saw on old pictures that still hang in the restaurant.
Oyster stew and New England clam chowder became signature items. Up front was a real oyster bar, where you could order a dozen freshly shucked. No more. The oyster bar created a lot of plumbing and serving problems, Joyce says. He had it taken out recently to make space for more tables and booths.
The menu -- which has grown to more steaks and pastas, as well as seafood -- stays the same. Everything just comes from the kitchen now.
Even before Dimlings', the Oyster House was in business on Fifth Avenue and W.C. Wright Valley Hotel, which evolved into Wright's Seafood Inn, was selling pickled pigs' feet, hard-cooked eggs and sandwiches in Heidelberg as early as 1898.
Oysters were a penny and a glass of beer 10 cents when the Oyster House opened on Fifth Avenue (approximately where Candyrama is now) in 1870. It's Pittsburgh's oldest bar and restaurant.
But 1916 was a very big year for the Oyster House. New owner Louis Americus moved the Oyster Bar to Market Square, and introduced the big fish sandwich with his wife's recipe for breading. It's still used today. The original oyster patty (dough and oyster pieces) is still on the menu, too.
During Prohibition the bar served buttermilk and soda, starting a tradition. The Original Oyster House, owned since 1970 by Louis Grippo and managed now by his nephew, Rick Faust, still sells a lot of buttermilk.
In 1921, Joseph Poli from Lucca, Italy, opened a luncheonette in Squirrel Hill, on the spot where Poli's restaurant is today.
It was just sandwiches at first. But the young entrepreneur would visit friends at other restaurants around town, ask them how they prepared a particular fish dish, and pay $2 for the recipe. Soon he had a repertoire of good recipes and a thriving fish restaurant.
The third generation -- grandsons Lawrence A. Poli Jr. and Joseph Poli II -- run the restaurant today. A longtime big seller still on the menu: Poli's broiled seafood platter, with lobster tail, scallops, scrod, shrimp and crabcake.
Primanti Brothers, where they put the fries and the cole slaw inside the sandwich, opened in the Strip in 1933. But manager Toni Haggerty says she's heard they were selling sandwiches from a horse and buggy even earlier.
She came to Primanti's 25 years ago, and the fries have been inside the sandwich at least that long, hon. There are seven other Primanti's now, as far away as Florida. But it's the original that still stays open 24 hours, attracts people like Hillary Rodham Clinton, and is busiest at lunch time or 2 a.m. when bars close.
First there was a small Ritter's diner on Hamilton Avenue in Homewood. Then in 1948, Ritter's moved to Baum Boulevard in a shiny new diner shipped in from New Jersey. (It's at Station Square now.) In 1975, Ritter's moved across to 5221 Baum Blvd. and into another new diner.
But some things don't change. Breakfast, 24 hours a day, is why most people go to Ritter's. Those in the know order buckwheat cakes.
"We've been serving them for ages," says Art Ritter. His real name is Art Velisaris -- who, along with his brothers George, Pete and Perry, own Ritter's now -- but to many customers, he's Art Ritter.
In 1949, the first Eat 'n Park opened on Saw Mill Run Boulevard. It seated only 13 people. No matter, the big attraction was having your double burger, fries and shake delivered to your car by one of those cute carhops. Today there are more than 70 Eat 'n Parks, but sorry, no more carhops.
Dean Steliotes knew the food business; his parents had the tea rooms in Rosenbaum's and Frank and Seders department stores.
But in 1958, long before Ruth's Chris and Morton's of Chicago steakhouses, he had an unusual idea. He opened the Colony restaurant with only three entrees; sirloin steak, filet mignon and lobster. With lobsters selling for $1.26, and the meat suppliers not accustomed to trimming all the fat off the steaks the way he wanted them, some thought it was a bad idea.
James Blandi, already a well-known restaurateur, came by in his Chesterfield coat and top hat one day, as Steliotes remembers, looked the place over and said: "You don't have soup on the menu. You'll never make it."
The following year (1959) three DeLuca brothers started serving breakfast in the Strip. In 1988, Chris and Drew Mikrut took over. DeLuca's is still where Pittsburgh goes for French toast and buckwheat cakes, seven days a week. But times are changing. Burritos are a big seller now.
Two Pittsburgh culinary landmarks opened in 1960 -- Le Mont on Mount Washington in May, and the Original Hot Dog Shop in Oakland in October.
James Blandi, his uncle Frank and a group of investors opened Le Mont on Mount Washington. At first it was just two rooms and seated 130 people. It cost $1.5 million, a lot of money for a restaurant back then, and was quite fancy, with lots of rococo Louis XIV decor, and a great view of Downtown. As the late Post-Gazette dining critic Mike Kalina wrote later: "James Blandi was a visionary who may go down in history as the man who opened Pittsburgh's first really important restaurant."
Later that year, the Original Hot Dog Shop opened in Oakland. It's "as Pittsburgh as it gets," says Terry Simon, manager of the "O," still owned by her father, Sid Simon. Thousands of pounds of hot dogs, mostly with mustard, onion and pickle, are wolfed down each week by Pitt and CMU students.
Some, of course, don't say Original, they say "Dirty O." The nickname was started by students who would drop in at 3 or 4 a.m. after a busy night, when napkins and trash were scattered about, Terry says.
The Original has spawned three little O's -- on Route 286 in Plum, one at CMU, and a flashy third one to open in January on the South Side.
The old Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad station on the South Side became the big Grand Concourse restaurant in 1978, after a long and careful restoration that exposed the beautiful ceiling, the grand staircase, ladies' waiting room and other features.
It soon became "the" place to take out-of-town guests for a look at old Pittsburgh, especially for Sunday brunch. Fresh fish -- including Charley's Chowder, salmon in parchment and salmon Rockefeller -- are among the attractions.
By this decade, Pittsburghers were well-acquainted with Italian restaurants -- every neighborhood seemed to have at least one. Much of the credit goes to people named Tambellini, some of them related, some not. At one time there were seven Tambellini restaurants.
Louis Tambellini, who had been in business on Mount Washington, moved to his big (700 seats) new building on Saw Mill Run Boulevard in 1981. Today it's operated by Andrew and John Tambellini, and is known for seafood as much as for Italian dishes. And there's still an F. Tambellini's on Seventh Avenue and a Tambellini's in Bridgeville.
When Christine Dauber opened Le Pommier in 1984, the South Side was mostly bars, pizza places, and a Russian restaurant where Cafe Allegro is now. Pittsburghers didn't know much about her country French food. "We sold steak and chicken," she remembers. "Everything else just sat there."
But Pittsburghers, along with the rest of the nation, soon became more sophisticated about food. Now she gets calls for traditional dishes like cassoulet as well as new fish and vegetable dishes.
Coffeehouses were perking 20 or more years earlier, but many of them were gone when Steve Zumoff and Scott Kramer opened the Beehive Coffee House on the South Side in 1991. As Starbucks spread across the land, many coffeehouses had started adding bars. On the South Side, though, the Beehive Coffee House stays true to its tradition -- "a place for the strange to meet," as Zumoff says. Or, "serving freaks for a generation."
In October 1993, Tom Baron and Juno Yoon opened Mad Mex in Oakland. Pittsburgh was ready for new and different restaurants. Another Mad Mex (on McKnight Road), Kaya, Soba Lounge and, most recently, the new Umi Japanese restaurant there, soon followed.
Their Big Burrito Company has tried a couple of restaurant concepts that didn't work here, but the two men are enthusiastic about the future of the business in Pittsburgh. "Just count all the cranes around town," Baron says. "There's a lot of high-tech stuff and a new attitude."
And in the year 2000 or so, there will be new Big Burrito restaurants. They're getting ready to sign leases.
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1900-1910