Pittsburgh Lately — Under a House

I think it's safe to say that many of us who grew up here never thought we'd stay here. Pittsburgh was so completely different only 10 years ago and back then, there wasn't much happening in terms of food, entertainment, and urban living. I'm sure there was something happening, but none of it was enough to draw me into spending a lifetime here.

So much has changed and I couldn't be more excited to be living through it. I used to make lists of things other cities had that Pittsburgh didn't, hoping to justify a leap to somewhere else. The pros are starting to outweigh the cons. Michael Keaton was at my coffee shop last week. Does it get any cooler than that?

Anyways. You can read lots of articles about Pittsburgh's recent growth and development.

Here are the things I've been soaking up in Pittsburgh lately:

Pizza Taglio

Dan's reviews of East Liberty's Pizza Taglio over on Pizza Walk With Me does this place more justice than I can, but please, for the love of god, pick up a bottle of red wine and head straight to this gem to enjoy some delicious pies. If you do nothing else, order The Greenpointer and then ask the owner, Tony, about his pizza oven situation.

Biking

I jumped on a bike a few weeks ago and never looked back. This city has made vast improvements in commuter biking, largely due to the Mayor's Complete Streets policy, which supports transportation infrastructure of all kinds.

After watching Dan on two wheels for a while now, I finally purchased a bike of my own last week from the folks at Kindred Cycles, who are the most helpful and enthusiastic crew of bikers I've ever met. This is the model if you're interested. It's seriously so fun to bop around town on this thing.

The photo above was taking at last month's Open Streets Pittsburgh, an awesome event where a 3.5 mile stretch of street is closed from Lawrenceville all the way to Downtown Pittsburgh. Dan and I biked the length of the event and saw lots of friends, strangers, and volunteers. The next one is on July 26 - check it out!

Baseball

What's not to love about the Pirates this week? We went to the game on the 4th of July. Dan wore this hat and his dad told us about the time he met Dock Ellis and all Dock said was, "everything is cool." Considering having that line printed on my business cards.

Come visit us in Pittsburgh! Or if you're already here, what have you been enjoying about the steel city lately?