Visiting Pittsburgh

If you’re looking for things to do, we’ve compiled our staff’s favorite things to do in Pittsburgh!

Activities

• Indoor Mini Golf at Puttshack
• Duquesne Incline
• Point State Park
• Acrisure Stadium (aka Heinz field)
  • Hall of Honor museum, stadium tours, and Steelers pro shop!
  • Group reservations

Food/Coffee

• The Coffee Village – coffee near the convention center
• Prestogeorge – good coffee and coffee beans!
• La Prima Espresso Company – coffee near the convention center
• De Fer Coffee & Tea – coffee and breakfast sandwiches
• Peace, Love and Little Donuts – good donuts 🙂
• Pamela’s Diner – breakfast, amazing hotcakes!
• Primanti Bros – famous sandwiches, walking distance from the convention center
• Market Square – quick bites, walking distance from the convention center
• Bakersfield Penn Ave – reasonably priced Mexican, near the convention center
• Novo Asian Food Hall – range of Asian food
• Bae Bae’s Kitchen – Korean restaurant, near the convention center

Pittsburgh is very walkable, including the area around the convention center, so we recommend that if you’re not going far!

Public Transportation

Pittsburgh has a subway system that is free within downtown, and then priced per distance as you go farther. There is also a bus from the airport! Best way to get around using this is to use Google Maps.

Parking

You can find real-time parking info for downtown here. Pittsburgh is a city, so in general expect to pay for parking wherever you’re going (although you can look for free street parking). Below are options near the convention center / hotels:

• Mellon Square parking garage (across the street from the Omni)
  • No in-out privileges
  • No large vans
• Westin: Self park is $8 hourly, $28 daily. Valet is $41/night.
  • Clearance is 6′, so not good for vans
  • Electric charging stations available
• Omni: Valet is $45/night, with in-out privileges
  • No vans
• Convention Center parking garage
  • Clearance 7’8″
• Convention Center Surface Lots
  • Best option for large vans!
  • Lots B and C, just east of the convention center, on Waterfront Place Rd are the closest
  • 11th st & Waterfront, west of the convention center, slightly further away

Pittsburgh is a bunch of tiny neighborhoods squished together. Bus service is decent, but the traffic gets rough if you’re on shared roads.

The busway is a highway that cuts straight through Pittsburgh, accessible to buses only. It’s great to get from the convention center to other neighborhoods. There is a stop 1 block from the convention center (Liberty & 10th). Use the Transit app to see the buses – I know the P1 comes approx every 6 minutes but there’s also a P68 and a bunch of others that run basically the same route, so there’s always a bus. Google maps works well.

You might want to take it to:

• Negley Station, which gets you to Shadyside. Station is steps away from Aldi and Giant Eagle (our big grocery store), and 3ish blocks from the “main street” called Walnut street. It’s upscale (think : Apple Store, Patagonia, Banana Republic, plus independent stores) and has some great places to eat. Tocayo (tacos), Mercurio’s (great prices on wood-fired pizza and homemade gelato), Girasole (more $$, Italian and really good limited menu), Liege (Belgian guy who makes his own waffle cones + ice cream).
• East Liberty Station, which gets you to East Liberty. Right near a Target (and Trader Joe’s and Staples). It’s being gentrified with some expensive/trendy places but also has dollar stores? Supposedly the new cool neighborhood
• Wilkinsburg Station : Generally don’t recommend, but if you want to check out the art-and-crafts thrift store (Creative Reuse), architectural salvage, food co-op, that’s the place to go
• Oakland is where Pitt is. It’s basically a college area. take any of the local 61 or 71 bus lines there.
• Keep going a few stops beyond Oakland to get to the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, the huge public Carnegie Library (which is beautiful), and then Carnegie Mellon University (it’s pretty to walk around), and Schenley Park. (Frick Park is further away and equally nice)
• Keep going even further on the 61 to get to Squirrel Hill, which has fun “main street” to peruse and varied restaurants for the adventurous “foodies.” The blue slide park is silly and fun, but not super easy via public transit (only one local bus)

Touristy things:

• The science center is $$ and overrated.
• The inclines (funiculars) are fine, you can take public transit to them.
• Aviary is cool
• zoo not worth it
• Randyland is WILD and you should see it if you’re zany
• Mattress Factory and Andy Warhol Museum are both fine, not my taste.
• Definitely go walk across a couple of bridges!
• Pittsburgh glass center is in Friendship/East Liberty and does lots of demos.
• The strip district and Lawrenceville are both fun little neighborhoods, you can take a local bus there.

Neighborhoods to skip:

• Herron Station (awkwardly in-between the Strip District and Lawrenceville, better to take a local bus to those)
• Swissvale Station and Beyond (these are sketchy parts of town)
• Downtown is gross. Luckily it’s small, and easy to get out of
• Don’t go on Smithfield St at night alone