It’s nighttime after a concert, a play, or you’re just enjoying an evening out but not ready to end the night quite yet. Where can you go in Pittsburgh for a late night hangout? The pandemic forever changed how we experience night life in the city. It seems nearly impossible now to find somewhere that is actually open past 9 p.m. and is not full to the brim with partying college students. Thankfully, there are still a few spots where you can head out with a partner, a group of friends, or on your own, for a late night cocktail, meal, bowling, or just to simply vibe. So the next time you find yourself wandering around the streets of Pittsburgh with nowhere to go, consider stopping into one of these hangout spots. They’ll be happy to have you spend your night with them.
There’s something happening at Bottlerocket just about every night of the week, usually going till 11 p.m. or 2 a.m. on the weekend. It’s a great place to catch a free show and have a drink. You can also try one of their famous Bottledogs, hot dogs with various toppings. Even if you’re not up to socializing or live entertainment, it’s still perfect for taking a seat at the bar and letting the atmosphere of the 70s wash over you. The bartenders are super friendly and are truly welcoming to new and returning guests alike.
Looking for fried bar food to finish off an evening of drinking or just for a midnight snack? The Squirrel Hill Cafe has long been a spot for Squirrel Hill residents to gather and catch up in a comforting space. They often have late night specials on food and drinks, plus they are open till 2 a.m. no matter what night of the week it is. So grab a pitcher of beer to share and take in this landmark for late night conversations and fun.
Nighttime sweet tooths seem to hit the hardest, but Butterwood Bake Consortium is there to soothe you with cakes, pie, coffee, and tea. This bakery is open till 11 p.m. from Wednesday through Sunday featuring cozy seats and ambient lighting. Order from cake slices, tea cakes, olive oil cakes, vegan desserts, blondies, special lattes, and even coffee beans to take home for the next morning. Who wouldn’t love to have a tea party at 10 p.m. in their fancy night out outfit?
Open till 10 p.m. during the week and midnight on the weekend, Umami Izakaya serves modern Asian cuisine in a Japanese pub setting. Whether you’re craving ramen, sushi, gyoza, grilled skewers, or just a carafe of sake, enjoy it inside their pub or out on their patio in the summertime. This restaurant even has desserts like a Chocolate Mochi Cake or Taiyaki (custard filled fish shaped waffles. You can also just stop by for a nightcap of sake or for a digestif like Fernet Branca, Averna, and Cynar.
Your friendly neighborhood bar in downtown is always open until 2 a.m with a kitchen open until midnight. Choose between taking a seat at the bar or sitting in a booth with friends as you take in their speakeasy-like atmosphere. It’s one of those bars where you just have to order a craft cocktail because they’re so appealing. The bar even recently opened a new tachinomi-ya next door which is a tiny Japanese bar where you stand to enjoy beer, sake, and highballs for a shorter period of time.
We couldn’t have a late night list without including Nadine’s, one of Pittsburgh’s most popular dive bars thanks to a feature on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. There’s nothing quite like sitting down to munch on hot wings and sip a large glass of cold beer, especially when it’s by a family-owned establishment. You could watch their episode on Food Network or you could stop in one night before 1:45 a.m. and try it for yourself!
If you find it hard to coordinate after work plans with your friends, Arsenal Bowling has hours from 5 p.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays to make sure you can pick a time that works for everyone. This bowling alley even has specials throughout the week such as All You Can Bowl and live bands on Wednesday nights. If you happen to get hungry when you’re there, you can stop by their food stand for sandwiches, various types of potatoes, vegetables, and food trays for sharing.
If you’re looking to just wind down for the night and relax before heading to bed, Rosewater Cafe is the lowkey hangout you’re looking for. At this Mediterranean cafe you can order a pot of black tea with cardamom or karak tea to share with the one you love. It’s often quiet within the cafe which gives you the perfect distraction away from the busyness that Saturday nights in the city tend to bring.
Story by Kylie Thomas Photo Courtesy of Michael Discenza
Is it time to throw a wonderful gathering or party? Pittsburgh is blessed with professional event services ready and willing to help. Their years of experience can turn potential disaster into delight, and probable fun into sure-fire fabulousness. Leaning on them and listening to their great advice can remove a lot of the pressure of hosting from your shoulders … and you may enjoy your own party as much as the guests!
Special thanks to The Oaklander and the team who created the photos that illustrate this wedding services directory. See the end of the article for all credits.
Your Guide to Event Services in Pittsburgh
The views from The Oaklander are sublime. Linens by Mosaic.
Wedding planner Meg Van Dyke brings her radiant sunshine and boundless energy to every event. She takes your budget seriously, and your happiness even more so. Start with a free consultation, and the rest is easy.
The team at Shayla Hawkins pursues every event with a passion: they want you to love your affair deeply. Their command of detail will bring to life a truly unique presentation and flavor.
Devoted to the “fine art Pennsylvania weddings”, Novalee creates timeless and classic affairs that live bright in the memory of every attendee…not to mention the happy couple.
Some of Pittsburgh’s major corporate events are planned by The Event Group. They know their way around all of Pittsburgh’s event resources and major venues, and their sense of taste is unfailing.
Alexis Allen designs events because she loves the work. She’s been in the event field since college, taking her skills to Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and New York City. Count on her for originality, customization, a sense of fun, and attention to all the details.
Martin Edwards designed lighting for Madonna and Rihanna, and others, and he brings a special sense of flair and drama to every wedding and gala he plans. His team provides turnkey services from the initial planning phase right up to the big night, and beyond.
Located in the South Side, The Fluted Mushroom offers a state-of-the-art wedding facility with a professional culinary team and access to The Circuit Center and Ballroom for up to 500 guests. They provide customizable menus and handle every detail.
This full-service catering company goes beyond exceptional cuisine by providing dedicated staff and collaborations with trusted vendors for rentals, linens, and florals, plus two intimate event spaces accommodating up to 80 or 150 guests.
Whether you’re after light bites and appetizers or a full-plated meal or buffet, this off-site caterer in Brackenridge offers a range of cuisine options, including American, Italian, Indian, Southern, and Cajun dishes.
Common Plea Catering is the exclusive caterer for the Heinz History Center and a preferred vendor at various venues throughout the city of Pittsburgh. Originally a restaurant known for its seafood, Common Plea now excels in event catering via a skilled team of chefs.
Sausalido strives to creatively present delicious dishes, offering a variety of choices from starters like white truffle deviled eggs to family-style dining with themed menus like Pittsburgh Yinzer and Asian Fusion. Don’t forget to try the Sausalido Premier spice line!
At Bistro To Go in the Northside, the chefs are committed to using only the freshest ingredients. They want you to think of them as your culinary designers, ready to create unforgettable menus and flavor combinations that fit your budget, vision, and dreams. Plus, since the food is prepared off-site, you’ll have the flexibility to choose your venue and manage logistics with ease.
Black Radish Kitchen is a women and queer-owned catering company offering customizable seasonal menus from BBQ to Middle Eastern and seafood. They provide on-site chef services, rental coordination, and bartending and server staff. They also collaborate with various wedding service providers in Pittsburgh and offer kosher, vegan, vegetarian, organic, and nut-, dairy-, and gluten-free options.
Bride Cydeny Cooper stands with desserts by Bella Christie’s.
Bridal Beginning in Mount Lebanon boasts Pittsburgh’s largest collection of wedding gowns, offering a stunning variety of designer options for brides and bridesmaids alike. The offering includes Hayley Paige’s classic designs with a modern twist, the bold styles of Ukrainian designer Milla Nova, and the urban chic creations of Sareh Nouri. Appointment required.
A renowned men’s clothier specializing in timeless fashion and tailored suits, Heinz Healy’s has a reputation for quality craftsmanship and exceptional customer service. They offer a curated selection of high-end clothing and accessories, along with personalized fittings to ensure a flawless look.
Pale Blue Thread is dedicated to helping you discover your dream gown. Specializing in custom, one-of-a-kind creations, they blend unexpected textures and innovative silhouettes to craft a design that truly reflects your personality. Ideal for bold, unique, and unconventional clients!
Since 1981, this family-owned fine clothier has offered high-quality suits, sportswear, and accessories, with collections ranging from Italo Ferretti, Paolo Vitale, and beyond.
Blanc De Blanc Bridal brings international style to Pittsburgh. The boutique features a curated selection of fresh, modern gowns from around the world, offering something for every taste.
Founded with a focus on sustainability, Knotzland upcycles discarded fabrics into unique, stylish accessories, combining fashion with environmental responsibility. Each bow tie is meticulously crafted, blending artistry and individuality to cater to diverse tastes.
Clarissa Boutique in Lawrenceville offers a stunning array of bridal accessories, including jewelry, hairpins, and veils, to elevate your wedding day look. Whether designing a custom veil or headpiece, incorporating a family heirloom, or selecting, restoring, modernizing, or recreating pieces, their creative expertise ensures you’ll shine as your most beautiful and authentic self.
Wedding packages, custom creations, whatever your special day wedding fit needs: this shop has you covered. David Alan Clothing offers personalized high-end clothing tailored to your body and style preferences.
Set aside 90 minutes for a personalized bridal experience at One White Lane Bridal Gallery. During your private appointment, you and your loved ones can sip champagne while exploring dress options in a warm and relaxed atmosphere.
Larrimor’s stands out as a top luxury clothing retailer in Pittsburgh, featuring a carefully curated collection that includes everything from tailored suits and elegant dresses to stylish casual wear. With offerings like custom tailoring and personalized style consultations, Larrimor’s ensures a perfect fit.
The Iron Horse Atelier in Lawrenceville specializes in wedding tailoring, offering expert bridal alterations, suit tailoring, and more, to ensure every piece fits flawlessly for your big day.
While ready-to-wear options are available, if you want something truly memorable for your big day, the team at Surmesur Custom Menswear specializes in crafting perfectly tailored, one-of-a-kind suits.
Luxe Redux Bridal specializes in offering designer wedding gowns — like Hayley Paige, Lazaro, and Vera Wang — at a fraction of the original cost. Pittsburgh brides-to-be can shop in-store and take home their dream dress straight off the rack or enjoy the convenience of the Luxe in a Box service, which delivers luxury gowns to your door for an at-home try-on experience.
Sorelle Bridal Salon is where brides, bridesmaids, mothers, and flower girls can all find something special for the big day. True to its name — Sorelle means “sisters” in Italian — this family-focused salon creates a warm, welcoming atmosphere, ensuring a delightful experience from start to finish. Appointments required.
Guests cheers glasses over the flowers by Dormont Florist and Linens by Mosaic.
Loyalty Weddings & Events, founded by Loyal and Nicole Martinez in 2015, offers DJ and live music services with a personalized touch by blending the team’s charisma, professional dance backgrounds, and unmatched energy. Beyond music, they provide photography, videography, and photo booth options.
Arev Music Entertainment, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a premier provider of live music services, renowned for its ensembles of exceptionally trained musicians. Their artists have received classical training from prestigious conservatories, ensuring a high level of professionalism and artistry in every performance.
Recognized as a Wedding Wire Couple Choice award winner for five years, Stellare Strings is available for booking as a string quartet, trio, or duo. Their romantic music creates a stunning atmosphere during ceremonies, cocktail hours, or dinner.
Founded by 20-year DJ veteran and event planner DJ TJ Harris, this versatile entertainment company offers more than just its stellar roster of DJs. Find services like catering, wedding officiants, photo booths, lights, LED walls, and more.
Steel City Florals, a women-led business, delivers one-of-a-kind floral designs. Owner Kaitlyn Caramela approaches her work as an art form, with a specialty in creating striking large-scale installations. Elopement packages are also available.
Fox and the Fleur was founded out of a deep love for nature, color, and stunning design. Specializing in unique floral installations, arrangements, and bouquets for weddings and events, they thoughtfully curate each creation with a focus on color, form, and texture to craft truly memorable designs.
This family-owned flower shop has built a reputation for exceptional attention to detail. Offering a diverse selection of locally sourced and international blooms, they create personalized arrangements tailored to your style and budget. Early booking is recommended.
Honey Bunch Bouquets, based in North Hills, specializes in breathtaking custom floral-scapes that leave a lasting impression. With a focus solely on weddings, they provide a highly personalized experience for couples and their guests.
A team of sisters takes on a limited number of weddings each year to deliver personalized service. They provide custom sketches, design plans, venue visits, and a range of other services to ensure that every detail aligns with the overall vision. By incorporating an array of colors and textures, they craft a distinctive and stunning wedding day experience.
Like the name of this Carnegie-based stationary vendor, your personality and vision can be told through more than the words on your menus, programs, invitations, etc. From traditional to rustic, the perfect design is just a few words away.
At Blush Paper Co., they believe that while fashion may change, timeless paper never goes out of style. They focus on incorporating your family’s cherished traditions into special wedding stationery with the goal of your invitations becoming beloved heirlooms.
Dot & Bow Paperie in Ellwood City focuses on crafting distinctive invitations that capture your distinctive personality and love story, providing a variety of styles to suit rustic, traditional, modern, or eclectic preferences.
Simplifying your planning process is the name of the game at Nota Bene, where the team guides clients in a curated shopping experience that merges timeless elegance with modern creativity.
Whether you’re seeking something completely unique or exploring semi-custom options, Melissa Voettiner is known for her enthusiastic “yes” to any request. She draws upon an endless array of printing techniques and embellishments to create stunning invitations for your special day.
At Oh Joyful Day, the focus is on creating wedding stationery and signage that truly reflect your love story through custom artwork and calligraphy. Owner Victoria Carpenter understands the importance of authenticity in this special time of your life. With her modern and sometimes whimsical approach, she seeks to capture the vibrant essence of your celebration.
Take your time with that first impression: the team at this local paper boutique is here to help you find the perfect invitation for your event. It’s recommended to book a private appointment for a relaxed browsing experience where you can explore their incredible selection from top designers like Gilah, Wiley Valentine, and Rifle Paper Co. Each piece is crafted with care, using premium papers and inks.
Specializing in creating personalized wedding invitations and decor that reflect the couple’s personalities, owner Nikki Stapleford creates handwritten designs rather than leaning on fonts or vinyl, resulting in uncommon seating charts, welcome signs, cake toppers, and more.
Mosaic offers a versatile range of rental options for events of all sizes, from budget-friendly polyester linens available in 60 colors to exclusive specialty fabrics. The woman-owned small business values collaboration and works closely with clients to transform visions into magical experiences.
Eventioneers is a full-service rental company dedicated to providing high-quality event essentials for weddings of all styles. Their ever-expanding inventory includes chairs, tables, tents, audio-visual equipment, and heating solutions, ensuring they can meet the needs of any celebration.
Dot & Rose Decor specializes in creating modern, custom event signage and décor, including welcome signs and seating charts crafted with advanced woodshop technology. They collaborate closely with clients, and offer a streamlined proofing process.
All Occasions Party Rental provides a comprehensive selection of event rental equipment, including tents, tables, linens, chairs, and more. Their sister company, Marbella Event Furniture & Decor Rental, offers an impressive inventory of stylish pieces to complement any event theme.
Lendable Linens specializes in high-quality, trendsetting linens that add a touch of elegance. Their collection includes glamorous sequins, sheer fabrics, and sophisticated patterns, perfect for weddings, events, and celebrations of all kinds. They also offer setup and cleanup services.
The Oaklander and its restaurant, Spirits and Tales, provided the venue for this lovely wedding shoot.
Discover quiet luxury at The Oaklander, offering a breathtaking 10th-floor wedding venue with panoramic views of Pittsburgh. The exclusive space features customizable catering and access to the in-house restaurant, Spirits & Tales.
The Grand Hall and The Rotunda rooms in this downtown venue used to be part of Pittsburgh’s Penn Station, which is known for its amazing Beaux-Arts architecture, as well as its stunning arched openings, beautiful marble floors, and the 40-foot vaulted ceilings in The Grand Hall.
The Gardens of Stonebridge, crafted by Jan and Jeff Lopes, provides a stunning setting for unforgettable weddings with serene water gardens and intimate ceremony spaces. Located just outside Pittsburgh, this secluded venue partners with JPC Event Group to deliver exceptional service.
Back in 1896, steel tycoon Frank Buhl constructed a beautiful stone castle for his cherished wife, Julia. While giving a mansion as a gift might be out of reach, you can still tie the knot there! Nestled in Sharon and proudly listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Buhl Mansion offers a range of indoor and outdoor venues to fit every style. You can rent out the entire property, which includes a charming 10-room inn and spa, ensuring a truly regal experience.
The Sewickley Quarter, inspired by a trip to New Orleans, was envisioned by co-owners Karen Hineman and Hannah Di Cicco in a charming courtyard on Beaver Street in Sewickley, PA. This distinctive venue accommodates up to 125 guests and features luxurious getting-ready suites, hand-batched cocktails on tap, and unforgettable dining.
Established in 2019 in a beautifully renovated carriage house in the Strip District, Kingfly produces a variety of award-winning spirits, including bourbon, limoncello, and spiced rum. The distillery offers multiple rental options for your event, accommodating anything from cozy gatherings to a full buyout of their impressive 10,000-square-foot space.
This 4,000-square-foot event space in Pittsburgh’s Strip District combines rustic charm with modern industrial elegance. Highlights include a striking tin ceiling, expansive windows, functional garage doors, exposed brick walls, and hardwood floors, all bathed in natural light.
Pittsburgh’s premier farm-to-table wedding venue, Bramblewood, is encircled by lush hills, apple orchards, and honeybee hives, offering a scenic natural setting. The stunning open-span barn pairs beautifully with the distinctive ceremony site featuring a living tree aisle and white pews.
THIS IS RED is a unique Slovakian church in Munhall that has been transformed into offices and event space. With 20,000 square feet of customizable space, a stone grotto, an upstairs whiskey bar, altar turned stage, and plant wall, it offers a stunning and versatile venue.
Willowbrook offers a serene wedding experience in rural Pennsylvania, featuring a panoramic dining area, multiple ceremony sites, and overnight accommodations. With farm-to-fork cuisine and eco-conscious practices, it caters to diverse clients desiring elegance and a memorable celebration amidst nature’s beauty.
You don’t have to go all the way to California to say “I do” in a vineyard. Bella Terra Vineyard offers a breathtaking setting that both couples and their guests will adore, featuring 100-year-old trees, a peaceful three-acre lake, and of course, the beautiful vineyard itself. The picturesque surroundings create a sense of privacy, making even the largest gatherings feel cozy and intimate.
Nestled in the heart of Shadyside, Mansions on Fifth Hotel boasts stunning high wood beam ceilings, rich dark walnut paneling, and beautiful leaded glass windows dating to 1906. The venue now blends modern luxury with classic charm. With 22 rooms and suites available, your guests will have a comfortable place to stay.
While you can’t tie the knot inside the house, The Barn at Fallingwater is ready for your special event. With its charming courtyard and nearby amphitheater, The Barn offers flexible spaces for your cocktail hour and reception. Plus, it’s just a short stroll of 500 yards north from the main entrance.
Recognized as “The Cake Place” in and around Pittsburgh for over 65 years, this family-owned bakery offers trademark French buttercream icing and exceptional service.
Led by a French Pastry Arts graduate, this studio creates visually stunning and delicious cakes by skillfully blending unique flavors and textures — imagine a lemon-lavender-blueberry or chocolate-stout-beer cake. Robba invites clients to trust his creative process, crafting personalized showstoppers that showcase a couple’s love stories.
The inclusion of this locally renowned bakery at your big event is the perfect way to add a touch the ‘burgh. Favorites flavors range from the iconic almond torte to red velvet, yellow, and carrot.
Butterwood Bake Consortium in Lawrenceville offers desserts made with Beehive flour, local butter, and organic eggs. Flavor options include those reminiscent of high tea. Expect earl grey, sweet potato spice, lavender, poppy rose, orange olive oil, black sesame, and others.
Jen Christy of Sweet Treats Bakery takes on only a select number of events each week. This way she can dedicate her full attention and affection to her from-scratch creations. Using locally sourced, farm-fresh ingredients, she enhances her cakes with fresh fruits and delightful fillings.
Does your party have a theme? Do you have a sweet tooth? Do you love a cookie table? Bella Christie’s could be the bakery for you, with its combination of sculpted creations and versatile menu options.
Cakes By Colby embodies the essence of “having your cake and eating it too” with luxurious, romantic designs. Every cake is personally crafted from scratch.
Squirrel Hill’s Gluuteny Bakery offers dairy- and gluten-free baked goods with vegan and soy-free choices. All items are handcrafted in-house from scratch, using non-gluten ingredients like rice flour and tapioca flour, as well as dairy-free options like almond milk and Daiya cheese.
There’s a good chance you already know of this famed local bakery and its exceptional baked goods. Booking in advance is highly recommended, and design options are limited. Still, Oakmont Bakery offers expertly crafted classic and trendy styles, and customers can customize cakes with flowers, colors, toppers, and more to match their wedding theme.
When a colorful couple marries in the hard lines of downtown Pittsburgh, it seems fitting for hues and bold shades to pop from start to finish against a black-tie wedding. For Brooke Sender and Rayce Bennett, the challenges of blending two cultural traditions led to lovely layers of tone, flavors, and formality and to leaps of freedom of expression and fun. From the first look on Hotel Monaco’s rooftop deck, to cocktail hour in their foyer, to the reception in the ballroom, playful tones of pinks and oranges, purples and reds, met the ceremonious wedding party with a sentiment of pure joy.
A Colorful Wedding for a Blend of Tradition and Modernity
For the planner, Meg Van Dyke of Yinz Getting Married, a black-tie wedding, elevated by color, means florists and photographers alike have room for creativity and personalization. “We are seeing more brides and grooms incorporate bold color which is something working vendors are especially happy about,” she says.
Florist Chris Stewart of Dormont Florist infused vibrant hues into every element of the July occasion. Pink and apricot ranunculus boutonnières stand out against the groomsmen’s black lapels and the groom’s late grandfather’s carefully kept cufflinks. An impressive explosion of fuchsia cosmos, pastel Gerbera daisies, and blush peonies wrapped in a piece of mother-of-the-bride’s own wedding dress take Brooke’s wedding-white to a new level.
During pre-ceremony photos, the surprising color-burst from bridesmaid dresses and the flower-adorned wedding party is a festive hint at valued tradition and some letting loose later in the evening. Photographer, Ryan Zarichnak adds, “I’m all about authenticity and a couple being 100% themselves on their wedding day. It just made sense that they featured bright, bold colors because Brooke and Rayce exuded positivity and good vibes all day.”
Finding a Middle Ground for the Bride and Groom
Traditional Jewish elements were incorporated into the ceremony and reception to honor the bride’s culture. “Having both of my parents walk me down the aisle was very important to me,” says Brooke. Later, the traditional breaking of the glass expresses a sentiment that paralleled a wedding of juxtapositions: somber meets merry where elegant meets bold and bright.
Even reception food and flavors played along. Formal “butler served” appetizers and dinner boasted layered colors and flavors on time-tested dishes. During cocktail hour, guests enjoyed a signature margarita embellished with bright tajin and tasty bites including artichoke beignets, and pickled vegetables.
Not only did color and flavor lend playfulness to the formal affair, but the bride and groom’s choice of officiant, Brooke’s 6’ 5” brother-in-law -who lightheartedly tucked his impressive stature under the color-drenched chuppah, made for a more personal, relatable event. Brooke says, “Rayce’s family is Christian and to find middle ground here, we chose to have Anderson marry us instead of a rabbi or pastor.”
At the reception’s peak, guests come alive to the hora as the couple floats on top of chairs around the circle of loved ones – a moment as big as it was beautiful.
In a final nod to coloring outside the lines, Brooke, Rayce, and friends capped the night with more dancing and also singing on stage at Howl at the Moon’s piano bar. What better way for the happy couple to enthusiastically endorse having fun with tradition and formality for a vivid event that makes room for all.
Keiko Fukazawa called ceramics “soft but unyielding.” Each piece starts as soft, unformed in the potter’s hand, moist and gentle. As so often happens to human beings, too, eventually that softness hardens. In the furnace, the clay resolves into its shape, asserts itself as an object. A plate? A cup? Something entirely new? What was once earth and water becomes a thing. Yet there is still a fragility to all ceramics, by nature. One unwieldy elbow, one misplaced knee, could shatter them. An unspoken contract between viewer and art usually keeps this from happening, but each object “lives” with this risk.
Keiko Fukazawa Melds Clay’s Ancient History with Present Experiences
A career retrospective runs the risk of becoming too general, with disparate works thrown together under the umbrella of the artist’s name. Contemporary Craft, however, established greater connection between individual works by placing Fukazawa’s work in three distinct themes and periods: ARTivism, In Betweenness, and Culture Clash.
A mixture of inner exploration, social commentary, and technical play appears in the retrospective. It’s always refreshing to be reminded that an artist’s work need not look exactly the same throughout their career. Fukazawa’s practice is wide-reaching, location-wise and thematically. She both attended a Jingdezhen porcelain residency and taught incarcerated youth in the California Department of Corrections system. The retrospective includes work from both periods.
Some of Fukazawa’s most poignant sculptures come from her work as an activist against gun violence. While looking at Fukazawa’a Gun Seizure (2024), a pile of porcelain guns wrapped in steel wire, I felt a pang of emotion about how very violent and sad human life can be.
One of the exhibition’s most powerful pieces is Peacemaker 1202201514 (San Bernardino, CA) (2017), pictured in the cover image. A white porcelain gun covered with flowers sits in a deep blue brocade box. It seems delicate and fragile, with pure, white porcelain and blossoms transforming it from a gun to an ethereal form. Something about this piece made me hear Tori Amos’s “Me and a Gun,” a haunting isolated vocal describing a harrowing act of violence and violation.
Graffiti, Symbols, and Language
Much of her “ARTivism” work is in collaboration with her partner, Dennis Olanzo Callwood, and draws from graffiti. Shoot for Tomorrow (2000), recalls Roberto Lugo’s blend of graffiti and ceramics. Fukazawa uses tags to toy with the interplay between language as visual and language as a means for literal communication. In Japanese lettering, language is both, and graffiti is the space where an “a” becomes not just a typographic symbol but an image. The In-Betweenness section of the show contains work that further plays with symbols of Japanese identity and fusions of popular culture like Sailor Moon and ritual sculptures like the Maneki Neko (lucky cat).
In one photo with a graffiti frame, In Memory of Jasmine (Dennis Olanzo Callwood) (1993), Fukazawa’s ceramics frame Callwood’s photograph of a man with a tattoo reading In Memory of Jasmine on his chest. The body becomes a gravestone, surrounded by depictions of real gravestones in Fukazawa’s illustration.
It’s a powerful meditation on how images and language can serve as memorial. As a combination of the written word and emotive visuals, graffiti itself can serve as a memorial. If you’ve ever seen the tag SAPPHO around Pittsburgh, it references a deceased writer and graffiti maker. The tag will be either a relic of her tagging days or an attempt to preserve her legacy. Danny Devine, another deceased graffiti writer, has a memorial wall in Garfield on the side of Trace Brewing. Likewise, Danny Montana, a.k.a MFONE, died of a drug overdose. When his tags appear on walls across Pittsburgh, other writers know not to “buff” over them as they are made in memoriam.
To those on the outside, graffiti is low culture or vandalism. A full-chest memorial tattoo like Callwood’s might be met with a judgment of “trashiness” or similar low culture. With these works, Fukazawa and Callwood aimed to challenge assumptions about “juvie kids” and their lives and experiences. What makes these expressions of grief or anguish any different from others?
Ceramics That’s Never Stagnant
The Culture Clash segment of the show displays Fukazawa’s feeling of not-quite-belonging to Asia or America eventually was something she was able to synthesize in her work, if not totally resolve. Her Scholar’s Rock sculptures comment on Chinese capitalism and human rights abuses in combination with images of the nature-focused, “ancient” China westerners often picture. East Asian ceramics often face an exoticization, a sense that they are only ritual objects from the past, not made by living contemporary artists with complex lives and practices. Both Fukuzawa and younger artists like Adam Chau or Amia Yokoyama find a way to balance the historical importance of clay in East Asian cultures with inventive, contemporary themes and images.
Photo by Susan Einstein
Fukazawa achieves what is often so difficult to do: making work that is powerful and moving in its subject matter, technically sound, and aesthetically beautiful. Every time I look at ceramics, I feel an awareness of life’s fragility. Art’s call to us is to live anyway, love anyway, even in the face of unspeakable violence. Respond, in some way. Do not let the despair die inside of you. Fukazawa’s work is evidence of a life well-lived that never leans too much into nostalgia towards the past. It’s clear her work is always responding to the present, and that a celebratory retrospective is by no means a mark of a career’s end. Fukazawa still makes work, and the world will be all the better for it.
Story by Emma Riva All photos courtesy of Contemporary Craft
It’s a rare dinner party where the signature cocktail is the same color as the hair of one of the hostesses. But at the Double DD Ranch-Warming Party, the lavender-hued cocktail felt right at home with hostess Maxine Lapiduss––award-winning standup comic, television comedy writer, and producer––who has hair that bears more than a passing resemblance to a purple jelly bean.
A Summer Dinner Party at Double DD Ranch
Hosts Maxine Lapiduss and Hillary Carlip.
A Meeting of Creatives
To envision Lapiduss, imagine if Rosalind Russell (in her role inAuntie Mame) and Phyllis Diller had a baby. In fact, in her will, Diller bequeathed her feather boas to Lapiduss, but that’s another story. Lapiduss also worked on classic TV shows that included Ellen, Roseanne,and Dharma & Greg.
Lapiduss’s wife, Hillary Carlip, is no shrinking violet herself. Crowned with hot pink hair––think Harriet the Spy meets Pebbles Flintstone––Carlip is an award-winning memoirist, the author of five books, and a performance and visual artist. Moreover, she is a former professional circus performer: a fire-eating juggler. If that isn’t a shiny enough résumé, she also won The Gong Show—three times!
Guests gathered on the portal of hosts Maxine Lapiduss and Hillary Carlip… minutes after a summer rain, and minutes before a glorious rainbow.
Lapiduss and Carlip are the proud new owners of a 27-acre ranchette, located 18 minutes outside Santa Fe. They named the property the Double DD Ranch, tongue-in-cheek reference to their physical endowments. Urban-ish West Coasters, they had a COVID pandemic-induced epiphany to turn their considerable talents to create a rural-ish space for workshops, events, and wellness retreats.
Making Home at the Ranch
When they saw the property, they immediately responded in unison with one word, bashert, Yiddish for “meant to be.”In other words, a resounding yes! Despite not knowing the difference between a dally and a dewlap, they decided it was the place they were looking for, complete with a picture-postcard Southwestern setting as the backdrop. The options would be as limitless as the sweeping views and the New Mexico sky.
To christen the ranch, they hosted a party with some of their nearest and dearest, a guest list that included a screenwriter, a cowboy, two jewelers, an anthropologist, an artist and an actor. There was also a cannabis dispensary owner, a gossamer-haired toddler, two hunks on horseback and a horse whisperer. Topping off the list was a movie star buffalo named Clyde.
Two neighboring ranchers stopped in for a drink.
Food, Fire, and Fun
When it came to food and drink the brief was clear: it had to be fun, funky, and fire-roasted. For thousands of years, humans have been putting food on sticks and cooking over an open fire. For the Double DD duo, it was dinner on a stick––everything from grilled, skewered prosciutto-wrapped peaches to succulent eggplant and shiitake kabobs with a smoky harissa.
As the sun began to set, veteran Chef Peter O’Brien was in command at the fire pit. O’Brien has been cooking professionally for over 30 years, including stints at Bishop’s Lodge and The Compound and now runs his own catering company. For this bash he produced endless platters of food: chicken skewers with a garlic-parmesan hot sauce; fire-roasted kabocha-carrot-and-beet sticks topped with Swiss chard pesto; curried cauliflower steaks with avocado-yogurt sauce; and of course, soupy cowboy beans cooked in a micaceous clay pot with cheesy jalapeño cornbread on the side.
Cheesy jalapeño cornbread in a skillet. Made by High Mountain Cuisine.
Vibrant Cocktails to Match
To ensure no guest was parched, Caley Shoemaker, co-founder of As Above, So Below Distillery, got into the spirt of the evening literally, setting up a bar on the portal of the barn, looking west toward an apricot-colored sky. She created colorful cocktails that looked like pastel summer dresses, including The Guadalupe, with her house-distilled Sigil Gin, lavender-honey lemonade, topped off with a marigold perched on the tumbler rim like a sun hat. Another festive libation was the Road to Chama, a spiced-peach cocktail served in a Nick & Nora glass and garnished with a candied peach.
Road to Chama, a peach flavored gin cocktail from As Above, So Below.
With cocktails flowing and the aroma of grilled food wafting in the sage-scented air, it was hard to imagine the party getting better. Then, as if sent by Central Casting, two handsome cowboys rode up on Quarter Horses, with an Australian shepherd leading the way. (A guest was overheard to say how nice it is to “live in a place where guests arrive for cocktails on horseback.”) The Mortenson Ranch is next door to the DD, and owner Clint Mortenson was one of the handsome cowboys. The ranch is also home to Clyde the Buffalo, a regular on Yellowstone, Kevin Costner’s blockbuster hit. Clyde has been known to turn up outside Lapiduss’s sliding glass doors. He seems to have a thing for Lapiduss and the feeling is mutual. She quips that if you’ve never had a buffalo arrive at your door to say hello, it’s quite something.
A Sweet Summer Evening
For dessert, O’Brien spit-roasted apples and served them with raclette fondue, with white chocolate and toasted pistachios. And to bring out the kid in the guests, there were frozen treats on yes, you guessed it, sticks, from a pink paleta cart festooned with colorful Mexican paper flowers. To end the evening, guests gathered around the fire pit, sipping hot chocolate garnished with chocolate-dipped marshmallows.
Chef Peter O’Brien’s roasted apples as a wonderful dessert. Made by High Mountain Cuisine.
Bespoke cocktails, an inspired menu cooked over an open fire, and a ranch setting right out of a Hollywood western, created a perfect summer evening in the high desert. Perhaps one of the guests described it best though: the Double DD Ranch has a calming, clearing energy that makes guests feel instantly relaxed. Sitting next to the fire pit, wrapped in a blanket and sipping hot chocolate under a starry sky is nothing less than magical. Lapiduss and Carlip are such welcoming hostesses that people feel as if they have arrived home––a gift for future guests at ranch events.The Double DD Ranch offers breathtaking views, a panoramic setting in which alchemy can unfold. The possibilities are endless.
Kabobs roasted over a hardwood fire at Double DD Ranch.
Grilled skewered prosciutto-wrapped peaches
Eggplant & shitake kabobs with smoky tomato harissa
Chicken skewers with garlic-parmesan hot sauce
Fire-roasted kabocha-carrot-and beet sticks with Swiss chard pesto
Curried cauliflower steaks with avocado-yogurt sauce
Soupy cowboy beans
Cheesy jalapeño cornbread
Spit-roasted apples with raclette fondue, white chocolate & toasted pistachios
Paleta (Mexican frozen treats)
Strawberry and kiwi flavored paletas (Mexican frozen treats). Special detail: The tray they are sitting on once belonged to actor Vincent Price. The plates come from Eight Million Gods in Truchas.
As Above, So Below Sigil Gin with lavender-honey lemonade and a garnish of marigold blossoms.
The Guadalupe, a gin-spiked lemonade cocktail from As Above, So Below.
Road to Chama
As Above, So Below Sigil Gin with Gruet’s Sparkling Sauvage, spiced honey-peach syrup, lemon juice, and the requisite garnish of a candied peach.
The Guest List
Cassidy Freeman and Gigi smile for the camera amongst the table of guests.
Maxine Lapiduss
Award-winning TV comedy writer/show runner, business strategist, and experience curator. The host.
Hillary Carlip
Bestselling author of five books, a digital innovator, and a visual artist with works in permanent museum collections. The host, tambien.
Clint Mortenson
Modern cowboy, trick rider, movie-stunt double, horse trainer, silversmith, and saddle maker. He owns Mortenson Ranch.
Wyatt Mortenson
Lifelong cowboy known for horsemanship, wrangling, stunt work, and acting.
Kobie Jimenez
A new-ish New Mexican working on a ranch riding horses and hanging out with a buffalo named Clyde.
Brian Boyd
Polo player.
Kristin Goodman
Award-winning screenwriter, director, playwright, professional horse trainer and wrangler for film and television.
Eli Goodman
Actor, producer, and co-owner of Best Daze Dispensaries.
Vanessa Vanya
Illustrator and tattoo artist.
Cassidy Freeman
Actress, musician, Mom of toddler Gigi.
Ben Ellsworth
Lifelong athlete, mountain running enthusiast, Wim Hoff Method (WHM) instructor, Dad of Gigi.
Emily Warner
Owner and founder of High Noon General Store.
Adelma Aurora Hnasko
Educational anthropologist, founder of creative residency and retreat space Resolana Farms, and author of a memoir about growing up in rural northern New Mexico.
Mona Van Riper
Jeweler known for intricate belt buckles featuring crowns, fleur-de-lis, hearts, or skulls.
Clyde the Buffalo
Resident of Mortenson Ranch and four-legged actor on the TV series Yellowstone.
Furniture isn’t just functional. For interior aficionados, this may seem like an obvious point, but in the age of mass-produced Wayfair chairs and easy online shopping, it’s easy to lose sight of furniture’s beauty and quality. People like Jason Leviere of Santom Upholstery & Refinishing are intimately familiar with the artisanship of furniture. For Leviere, furniture isn’t just stuff—it’s what makes up our day-to-day lives. It’s what quite literally supports us! His business, family-owned since 1958, has allowed him to see how modernity and the past meet happily through restoring old furniture.
For Santom Upholstery, Furniture is More Than Things
Leviere grew up around furniture, with his parents often pointing out the condition of the pieces in restaurants, bars, and funeral homes the family went to. His father would come home from work, eat dinner with the family, and then retreat to his workshop to tinker with the chairs and couches that came home with him. “I remember thinking ‘Wait, didn’t he just come from home from work?’” Leviere said.
Though he loved watching his parents restore furniture, he wanted to move away from upholstery, which was “as much of [his] daily life as eating cereal” and forge his own path. So, he went to New York and worked on the corporate side of the furniture business for Crate & Barrel, Jonathan Adler, and Restoration Hardware. But when his parents retired, he felt a calling to return to hands-on work and hasn’t looked back since.
Every Piece is Different
“Every single piece of furniture is different,” Leviere explained. “You could look at 400 wing-chairs and every single one of them would be different.” What also changes over time is how people relate to their homes. One of the biggest mistakes Leviere sees clients make when shopping is buying only based on aesthetics, not for their lifestyle. Sure, a Mario Bellini cream sofa might be beautiful, but if you live in a house with kids and dogs, you’re going to be spending a lot of money down the line to keep it in mint condition…or even decent shape!
Leviere at work
While there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a consideration worth making. “Nowadays, we live in our houses,” Leviere said. “My grandparents’ generation had a formal room for entertaining that they only used at Christmastime. Now, people spend a lot more time in their home using things every day.”
And the way in which we live in our homes is also very different, Leviere explained. “People are feeling like they don’t have much control in the world, so they can control the inside of their home,” he said. But he also encounters plenty of vintage furniture from other eras, when people related to objects differently. He once saw a set of chairs washed away in the Johnstown Flood, which had been refurbished by hand by the original owners. “The springs that were inside were tied with telephone cord, because that’s all that the people had access to. The seat was stuffed with army blankets. Whatever they had, they would use.”
Santom Upholstery’s Work Around Pittsburgh
But not everything Leviere and his team restore is as dramatically storied as decrepit chairs from the Johnstown Flood. Sometimes, he works on projects for larger institutions that Pittsburghers get to see every day. “We were lucky enough to help with the nationality rooms at Pitt,” he explained. These rooms underwent renovations, but the university only wanted conservation, not a full makeover.
Pittsburgh is full of architectural treats for the eyes, both inside and outside. One place Leviere recommended to go to really see what furniture restoration can be is the Priory Hotel on the North Side. “There are some hotels that the lobby looks like a Vanderbilt-era lobby, then you go up to your room and it looks like a Best Western. The Priory isn’t like that,” he said. He recommended a “staycation” there or a drink at the Monk Bar.
However, you don’t have to have an 1890s chair or a full-service hotel to restore to work with a conservator, or even to just develop slightly better habits to care for your furniture. “The things that your mom would yell at you about, I would yell at you about: not using coasters, not watering a plant in the middle of the table, not using a hot plate in the middle of the table, all that stuff,” Leviere said. But, if you have been putting coffee mugs straight on the table, there’s no need to be ashamed. That’s why Santom is around, to spend time and care on the objects others live with. “Reupholstering and refinishing and doing this kind of renovation is custom work. It’s not going to be a drive-thru kind of experience. But if you put in the time, it’s worth it.”
Story by Emma Riva Photo courtesy of Santom Upholstery
Pittsburgh residents are fortunate to have a vibrant and growing network of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, connecting residents directly with local farmers and fresh, seasonal produce. As spring approaches, many farms are opening their CSA sign-ups, offering an opportunity to secure a share of the harvest and support sustainable agriculture in our region. Delight in the crisp greens, vibrant vegetables, juicy fruits, and flavorful herbs directly available to you through a CSA. This way, you know where your food is coming from, you save a bit of money and time, plus you get to foster a deeper appreciation for the work of local farmers. Just be sure you sign up before all these farms’ shares are gone!
Blackberry Meadows Farm is all about personally raising and growing everything they sell. At this farm in Natrona Heights, you can get a half share or whole share for pickup either at the farm or within the city. With a basic share you can look forward to 20 consecutive weeks of produce, picked up at the farm, from June to October. They even have a garden share where you get a variety of seeds from April to October.
If fresh fruits and vegetables are your thing, consider purchasing a CSA share from Cherry Valley in Stroudsburg. Imagine cooking with farm-grown turnips in the springtime and munching on melons during the summer. Cherry Valley’s season runs from June to November and they’ve been in the CSA game since 2007. Their expertise guarantees you weekly pick-up of produce and herbs for 22 weeks.
Dillner Family Farms may be in Gibsonia, but you don’t have to travel that far for their CSA program. If you choose to pick up on a Wednesday, you have the opportunity to grab your fresh foods from the farm in Gibsonia or at two different locations in Mt. Lebanon. Plus, with the price of eggs currently, you may want to consider their egg share add-on to receive farm-fresh eggs weekly or biweekly.
If you want to be able to choose what you’d like to receive, Harvest Valley Farms is the way to go. Their vegetable CSA lets you come to the farm, grab a basket, and explore a table full of ingredients to choose what you want and leave what you don’t. They also have a cheese CSA program where they partner with different creameries to bring you new varieties every week or every other week.
What if you could get all the benefits of CSA but with the luxury of receiving that box right at your door? That’s what NWPA Growers provides with a delivery service that you can purchase along with your CSA share. Not to mention, it’s fully customizable so you can pick from just veggies, just proteins, or any combination of the two. Plus, if you’re going to be out of town for the week, your credit remains in your account and rolls over for use whenever you’re ready.
Choose between a 20 and 24 week CSA share from Sarver’s Hill Organic Farm which begins in May and keeps you full till October. If you’re thinking about purchasing from this Westmoreland farm, we recommend doing so sooner rather than later. When you buy your share before April, you can get a small discount depending on the month you purchase it in. You can also receive an extra discount if you’re a returning CSA member or volunteer.
Your weekly share of a traditional CSA from Who Cooks For You Farm includes a curated selection of cooking greens, salad greens, fresh herbs, fruits and melons, snacking veggies, cooking veggies, and something starchy. But, if you don’t want to trust in the fun of farm surprises, you can try out their customizable CSA share for the summer. Here you can pick out what seasonal vegetables you’ll receive each week.
While you can get fresh vegetables and fruits at just about any CSA, at Oak Hill Farm you can get premium, USDA-inspected, frozen cuts of angus beef too. Outside of the beef, from May to December you can pick up fresh lettuce mix, seasonal vegetables, and local farm fresh eggs. Oak Hill Farm takes its place about an hour south of Pittsburgh and west of Washington. But, you can always pick up from two different farm markets in McDonald and Carnegie, Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh’s Eastern, Northern and Southern communities are able to enjoy home delivery from Edible Earth Farm for an additional fee. But, if you would rather save a few bucks, you can pick up from their host site in Grove City or straight from their farm in Sandy Lake. With one of these subscriptions, you get the chance to order from your phone what fresh foods, canned goods, dry goods, meats, seafoods, dairy products, mushrooms, and soups you want all locally sourced.
Weekly or every other week in Aliquippa, McConnells’ Farm CSA members can choose the produce and other locally made groceries they will receive. This farm specializes in tree fruit, but also offers a variety of summer and fall vegetables and leafy greens. Plus, CSA members receive a ten percent discount on their share and are also eligible for other deals throughout the season
Story by Kylie Thomas Photography Courtesy of Elaine Casap
Three years ago, on the way to accompany her partner for an interview on mental health with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, Chicago-based artist Madison Manning had her first seizure on a plane in the Denver airport. (“The ambulance went through the supposed underground airport tunnels people have conspiracies about. Or so I’m told,” Manning remembered). That day, she discovered she had a form of dissociative epilepsy. Forced Necessary Rest, on view at Bunker Projects in Garfield, is a culmination of her work since her life’s focus shifted to prioritizing her health and wellbeing over all else.
“I can’t get stressed out,” Manning—who uses both she and they pronouns—explained. Since developing epilepsy, stress was a health trigger, not just a natural part of life. They had to re-evaluate how they lived their day-to-day life. To find relaxation and better mental health, they quit drinking, went on walks, watched old episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race and 30 Rock, and spent time “being an old lesbian” with their partner. But they had to transition into a life where they could no longer drive, go to Madonna concerts, or make the sculptural work they were accustomed to. Forced Necessary Rest came about when Manning participated in Bunker Projects’ artist residency. They picked up a children’s loom to start making work they could do sitting down.
Knot, Knot! Who’s There? Knots as a Thinly Veiled Metaphor for Difficult Feelings (2023) by Madison Manning.
Madison Manning Finds Glamor in the Fainting Couch
With a background in jewelry and metalsmithing, Manning has pays attention to beauty. There’s an echo of Tennessee Williams’ Blanche DuBois or the trope of the “aging” southern belle in Manning’s work. The adornments of womanhood and femininity form a rhinestone-encrusted armor against a world that feels hostile and frightening. The work features glimmering rhinestones, hair, and sewing accoutrements combined into undulating tapestries of pink, green, and silver.
Self Portrait of An Episode, on Bunker Projects’ mantlepiece, shows a mass of lime green flashes and fuchsia and baby pink swirls of yarn. Synthetic black hair hangs from the fabric. It evokes the image of a woman on a fainting couch in a state of vulnerability, her hair spread out around her like a halo. They also imagined how in previous eras, they would be on a fainting couch, retiring from public scrutiny of their hysteria, as the protagonist of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was.
Zoom In/Zoom Out (Feathers) and Zoom In/Zoom Out (Fringe) flank the self-portrait. These works convey how during an episode, Manning feels a sense of dissociation. The colors and shapes undulate through the fabric. Like femininity itself, it feels simultaneously connected to the body and depersonalized from it. The most glammed-up version of femininity can sometimes almost border on the grotesque, claw-like acrylic nails and vampiric cheekbone contours. Manning’s interpretation is somewhere in between, an abstracted version of femaleness that draws from the joy of both drag and traditional craft.
“When I am awake and feeling well, I want to feel joy,” Manning said. “I want to make things that make me happy.” Manning loves Laura Ashley couches and chintz patterns. In the Southern town where Manning grew up, femininity was tan, blonde, and over-the-top. These were things they didn’t feel embodied who they were.
In contrast to their work, Manning wears only black, with dangling diamond earrings and chunky glasses, describing themselves as “looking like a Muppet.” Their partner proposed to them with custom-made Muppets of the couple. “I’m not as mad at femininity as I was in my twenties,” they said. The performance of femininity is fragile, as anyone who’s tried to wash their dishes with acrylic nails on, walked home in the rain after a blow-out, or stepped in a sewer grate with heels on knows. Our bodies are fragile, too. “One thing I take note of when I’m weaving is if you pull in the right spot, it could all come apart,” Manning said. Just one thread. That’s all it would take.
A Necessary Space for Rest
“People have come by the gallery this week and said they ‘needed’ to see work like this,” Manning said. Viewers have found solace from the twenty-four hour news cycle or a moment to spend time with something beautiful. Manning’s work encourages all of us to put our health first and to imagine that it really was all on the line.
What if we treated our lives, our bodies, and our relationships as if stress and pain were a genuine health risk? As Susan Sontag commented in Illness as Metaphor, “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.” Manning urges us to see that beauty, by nature, is fragile. If we want to live beautifully, we must live with care.
Madison Manning’s Forced Necessary Restopens February 7 at Bunker Projects and is on view through March 16.
Story by Emma Riva Photo courtesy of Bunker Projects
A sultry photo shoot at the Strip District’s Balvanera tantalizes all the senses with bold colors, blindfolded diners & enticing Argentinean fare.
A colorful shoot by photographer Joey Kennedy enlivens the already vibrant, soaring spaces inside Balvanera — a Strip District hub for delectable Argentinean fare. Alexis Allen, an accomplished local wedding and event planner, producer and designer, helped dream up the scene, inspired by hit reality show Love is Blind. The vision featured bright primary colors, beautifully curated dishes, and diners cheekily donning blindfolds, reminiscent of the streaming sensation that encourages connections beyond visual cues.
Balvanera Hosts Romantic Blind Tasting
Allen and team decided they wanted to include a diversity of people at a table filled with more than couples. Allen found the individuals on Instagram (none were professional models), which felt important in seeking a group who could naturally interact and enjoy a meal together.
Celebrating Both Friendship and Love
“We wanted a different approach to Valentine’s Day that wasn’t overly gender specific and more encompassing of friends celebrating versus romantic couples,” Allen says. “I wanted to also put a creative, artistic spin on it, which birthed the concept of infusing Bauhaus-inspired designs.”
Allen appreciated that the “industrial rawness” of Balvanera’s private event space offered incredible natural light, while allowing the tablescape design and beauty of the culinary offerings to shine as showstoppers. May Chester Design provided the dazzling florals, Lendable Linens the custom linens and Loree Mayer Design the branding and stationery that appear on the long dining table. Makeup artist Esfir Koles prepped models for the shoot, which was all about exploring senses aside from sight when it came to the culinary experience. (Each model was blindfolded during dinner.) “With all of the fragrant dishes and interesting textures,” Allen explains, “there is a playful and even touch of a sensual aspect of indulging without actually seeing the dish.”
Balvanera Pittsburgh unveiled its second home last November, the original being in New York City. Diners have quickly gravitated to this local outpost for the sleek venue’s grass-fed steaks imported from Pampas Argentina and served with fresh chimichurri and salsa criolla, plus house-made sausages, empanadas, Spanish Iberico ham and tasty veg offerings, too.
Of her creations for this set, Allen most enjoyed the unprecedented nature of color block florals to complement the bold hues and geometric patterns appearing on custom table linens, napkins and chargers. “With how ‘clean’ the space was, the layers upon layers of color and shapes created interesting dimension,” she reflects. “It had a playfulness that was also sexy.”
A City for Creatives
Allen, who’s worked in the events industry for nearly 15 years, collaborates with a wide range of clients on a variety of events, assisting with every aspect of the planning process from date and venue selection through to full execution of the event. “I am dedicated to exploring new concepts,” she says, “and creating the unimaginable is always merged with my commitment to providing my clients with a methodical, transparent and enjoyable planning experience.”
Pittsburgh is overflowing with creative talent, Allen believes; so many here crave stretching beyond their comfort zones. “We yearn to experiment with color, unusual shapes and collaborate, as that is when the most inspiration is developed,” she says “Particularly in the past 10 years, this city has evolved while not abandoning a lot of its historic architecture.”
Allen relishes design opportunities that pull in the old-world charm and/or industrial edge that Pittsburgh has always had to offer — intertwining it with contemporary art, clean lines and/or technology, for which the city’s now becoming famous.
Though Black History Month is a great time to learn about Black-owned businesses in your community, delicious Caribbean food is something to indulge in any time of year. Pittsburgh’s array of Black-owned Caribbean restaurants is small but mighty. Here are a few to get you started if you’re curious about Caribbean food in Pittsburgh, including one brand new restaurant.
Try These 5 Local Spots for Caribbean Food in Pittsburgh
ShadoBeni, one of the North Side’s treasures, offers vegan Trinidadian fare from artist Ulric Joseph. Joseph takes his inspiration from the fact that in his childhood in Trinidad, food was medicine. He uses all-natural ingredients from local farms, and his roti, plantains, and pineapple chow are legendary.
There’s a new Trinidadian restaurant in town, as of early 2025. Curry Mouth recently opened in Coraopolis, where you can get roti, pelau, and pholourie (deep fried dough balls). Curry Mouth says of their mission that “Growing up in Trinidad, food was always a celebration, a vibrant thread in the fabric of our community that brought people together. It’s this sense of community and shared joy that we strive to recreate at Curry Mouth, fueled by our desire to provide wholesome foods, from the water we use to our handmade roti.”
Pauline’s is legendary among food scene insiders for its plantains and curried goat. Their jerk shrimp alfredo is mouthwatering—the meat is simmered to perfection, and you can practically smell the juices from the photos of their food.
This neighborhood comfort food spot in the Hill District promises big portions and low prices. The jerk chicken fajitas, honey garlic chicken, and mac and cheese at Abby’s are hearty, filling, and make for a great midday lunch. Just remember to check the hours, as it’s a family-run business only open Wednesday to Friday 12PM to 8PM.
