Beauty City. Pittsburgh Beauty Bar, South Side

Last fall, we watched with disbelief as a tenant finally moved into the empty retail space at Penn & Main and opened its doors for business. That prime corner had sat unoccupied for at least two decades*, and El Sabor Latin Kitchen inexplicably added another Mexican restaurant to the same block as Los Cabos during a global pandemic. Let’s just say the whole thing was front page news at Chez Orbit. But when those big Penn Avenue windows came dressed in a decal with an original logo of the Pittsburgh skyline embedded in a hot pepper, well, let’s just say it made the last twenty of years of head-scratching make a lot more sense. The landlords were just looking for the right tenant all along.

Hot Pepper City: El Sabor, Bloomfield

The downtown Pittsburgh skyline–spiky towers at PPG Place, Highmark’s pointed angle, the big block of the USX (neé US Steel) tower, a couple of bridges if we’re lucky–just won’t be contained. Here it is, the Orbit‘s seventh trip down this particular road and we’ll no longer be foolish enough to think we’ve bagged them all. You get a new restaurant today and there will always still be an untapped pizzeria, plumber, real estate agency, or left-in-the-woods slate stencil art tomorrow.

It is a beautiful (and sunny!) day out there. Go out and find your own Pittsburgh skyline.

[Special thanks to Greg Lagrosa who is working the micro-beat of food trucks with the Pittsburgh skyline temporarily parked in Verona hard.]

Sandwich City. Pittsburgh Sandwich Society food truck, Verona [note: skyline made of *sandwiches*!] [photo: Greg Lagrosa]

Eatz City. PGH EATZ food truck, Verona [photo: Greg Lagrosa]

Paw City. Point Breeze Veterinary Clinic

Sale City. Pollack Real Estate sign, South Side

Your Town City. Your Town Realty

Big A City. Arkham Realty & Property Management

Cheese City. Pops & Son Pizzeria, Brighton Heights [photo: Kristen Sarver]

Deli City. Shop’n’Save, Lawrenceville

All Day City. Alioto’s, Etna

Skyline stencil on piece of slate left under a mysterious Christmas tree along Emerald View Trail City. Mt. Washington

Pandemic Rainbow Heart City. Key Bank, Downtown