Pittsburgh’s pop-up restaurants are proving that culinary innovation often starts small and leads to a brick-and-mortar business down the road.
Some of Pittsburgh’s most interesting places to eat didn’t start with business plans or big investors.
They started with folding tables. Late-night kitchen experiments. Food trucks. Pop-up kitchens. Pure survival instinct.
Brothmonger, Polska Laska, Stuntpig, Fet-Fisk, and The Brinery didn’t take the traditional path. They rolled pierogi from home kitchens, smoked meats in driveways, slung Nordic seafood at underground dinners, and ladled soup into a city that needed comfort.
Building a restaurant this way is its own education, and its own adventure. As Nik Forsberg of Fet-Fisk puts it:
“Diners give more grace at pop-ups; they are experimental by nature, and spontaneity is celebrated. Restaurants provide the opposite — reliability, familiarity, and comfort are keynotes of a successful place. There is much less room for error. My advice to anyone doing pop-ups is utilize the sandbox to its fullest while you can, because everything changes once you go permanent.”
These five spots are proof that sometimes, the winding path is the best way forward.
4 Pittsburgh Pop-Up Restaurants Turned Brick-and-Mortar
Polska Laska
When the pandemic hit, Olive Visco, a seasoned bartender with over 16 years in hospitality, found herself unemployed. “I was desperate,” she says. “At first, I was just making pierogies for fun. But then it became survival.”
That hustle turned into Polska Laska, a Polish comfort-food café in Sharpsburg that feels like a time capsule: pierogi and recipes passed down through four generations of women in Visco’s family.
Recipes Passed Through Generations
Raised on her great-grandmother’s pierogi and holiday feasts, Visco learned to pinch and fold dough by age 10. “Most of my recipes come from my great-grandmother,” she says. While her grandmother’s health problems limited their cooking time together, “I learned from my mom and great-aunts. It was how we stayed connected.”
Her signature pierogi — potato cheddar, farmer’s cheese, and kapusta (made with sauerkraut) — carry that legacy. And while pierogi are the heart of the menu, Visco offers pickled beet salads, stuffed cabbage, and other Eastern European staples. “I want to show people what Polish food can be,” she says. “It’s not just heavy winter food. It can be fresh, bright, vegetable-forward.”
Before opening the café, Visco built a following through Instagram drops, boosted by wordof-mouth and a few local chef shoutouts. When a stranger tagged her in a post about a vacant kitchen in Sharpsburg — Mindy’s Take and Bake was moving out — Visco knew it was the sign she was waiting for. “It’s like the space found me,” she says.
Polska Laska officially opened in January 2025. Inside, the vibe is 1950s Poland by way of Pittsburgh grit, curated with the help of her parents, “hobby designers” who thrifted and built out the café’s mid-century-modern look. “It’s true to the era [when] my grandmother would’ve been in her prime.”
Building a Business While Raising a Child
The café wasn’t the only thing Visco was growing — she had a newborn in her arms, too.
“I was basically raising two babies at once,” she says. “I just knew I wanted to give my son a joyful, secure life — and this was how I could do that.”
Today, her husband works alongside her, the pierogi have a cult following, and Visco is dreaming of a future with a little more time for both food and family. “I think my son will be proud of me,” she says. “This isn’t just about making food. It’s about building a life.”
Polska Laska: 1100 North Canal Street, Sharpsburg, Instagram/ polskalaskapgh, polskalaskapgh@gmail.com. Open Wednesday to Friday, 11 to 4; Saturday, 11 to 3.
Brothmonger
I started Brothmonger because of one specific soup,” says Sarah Coppolo, founder and owner. “It was a sausage tortellini soup. A tomato-based beef broth with hot Italian sausage and kale. I used to make it all the time, especially when friends were sick.”
From Apartment Kitchen to Small Business
In late 2018, she began selling it by the quart from her tiny North Side apartment via Instagram. No PR plan or commercial kitchen. Just word-ofmouth and homemade broth, packed with comfort.
Coppolo wasn’t a trained chef. She had moved to Pittsburgh from Elk County at 18 to study mortuary science. “I didn’t know how to cook at all,” she admits. “I lived on ramen.” But missing her mother’s homemade soups pushed her to learn. Over the phone, her mom taught her how to simmer and season from scratch, often with encouragement from a then-boyfriend who worked as a line cook. “Soup was the first thing I missed when I moved away. It was the first thing I wanted to learn,” she says.
What started as a side project quickly snowballed. She sold her soup at Mayfly Market in the North Side, then Thyme Machine and Linea Verde Green Market in Bloomfield. At the same time, she grew a loyal online following with “Brothmailer,” her frank and funny email newsletter about soup, seasons, grief, and growth. By 2023, it was clear: Brothmonger had outgrown Instagram drops and market tables. Coppolo needed a steady home.
Crowdfunding a brick-and-mortar café in Pittsburgh’s competitive dining scene felt daunting. “I was terrified,” she says. “I kept thinking, What if nobody gives me any money?” But the opposite happened. Through a well-planned Honeycomb Credit campaign, she raised $100,000 in four days, fueled almost entirely by local supporters who had followed her journey for years. “People have seen me around, they’ve watched me grow, and they wanted to help me keep going,” she says. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
A Living Room-Style Café Experience
Brothmonger opened in Bloomfield in fall 2024, in a cozy storefront on Liberty Avenue. “We actually call the dining room the living room,” she says. “It looks pretty similar to the living room in my house.” Vintage cookbooks passed down from her grandmother line the shelves. There’s soup, of course — but also little snapshots of everyday life: a pasta spill here, a soup splatter there, captured with humor on Instagram.
The menu shifts with the seasons, moving from hearty wedding soup and roasted red pepper bisque in the cooler months to bright gazpacho and lemony chicken soup in the summer. And there’s plenty of grilled cheese to dunk into all those soups. But Brothmonger was never just about soup. It’s about care.
“It’s still comforting people,” she says. “When I was a funeral director, I helped them when they were going through the worst time. Now, I get to comfort them, mostly when they’re happy.”
Brothmonger: 4770 Liberty Avenue, Bloomfield, brothmonger.com. Hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11 to 5.
The Brinery
The dream started in the front seat of a car. Joe Bardakos and Madi Donaldson had just left the hospital with their newborn daughter, Charlotte, in November 2020 when the idea took root. At the time, Bardakos was still chef at Piccolo Forno in Lawrenceville, and he and a business partner had a side hustle in pickles. But in that quiet, love-filled moment, something shifted. “We started talking about what we wanted out of life,” Bardakos says. Their goal was something they could build as a family.
From Food Trucks to a Shared Business Vision
The result: In the thick of the pandemic, Bardakos quit his job and started a food truck with his business partner. By 2023, a second truck was added to the mix. And by 2024, Joe and Madi went their own way and opened The Brinery on Main Street in Sharpsburg.
The joint gets its name from their pickle-slinging days, though they still make a mean vinegar-based pickle instead of fermented. (The secret? “A LOT of garlic.”) They ferment sauerkraut in-house for their Reuben, which Donaldson proudly calls “one of the best in the city.”
Food as Family Legacy and Memory
Food is memory for this couple. It’s about legacy. Bardakos’ late father is the inspiration for a sandwich called The Graceland — a fried chicken affair named for his love of Elvis and indulgent comfort food. “He was a big Greek guy with a huge appetite and an even bigger personality,” Bardakos says. “Every time we sell a Graceland, I know he’s smiling from ear to ear.”
Running a Restaurant While Raising a Family
Donaldson shares another moment that cemented their journey. Bardakos’ mother, “a tough, traditional Italian lady,” was notoriously hard to impress. But even she fell for Joe’s Reuben as well as the cheesesteak. “It was a testament that we’re doing something right,” she says.
After years of running pop-ups and trucks, they understood the value of making everything fresh — even if it meant running out on a Friday night. “You only have so much,” Bardakos says. “And while it’s never ideal, people get it when it’s good.” That ethos carries into their service model, where they make everything in-house, even the bread.
As they grew the business, they grew their family, welcoming a second daughter, Presley, nicknamed “Beepers,” along the way. (Charlotte garnered the nickname “Smooch.”)
“For me, it didn’t matter what we did,” Donaldson says. “As long as we had a place the kids could be a part of.” And part of it they are. Regulars greet Smooch and Beepers by name, like old friends.
Even with two little kids and a restaurant to run, “Joe is constantly chasing the next thing,” Donaldson says. “I tell him, ‘You need to calm down.’ ” For now, they’re finding balance while raising kids, running a restaurant, and dreaming up new ways to connect with their community.
The Brinery: 914 Main Street, Sharpsburg, 412-420-0744, brinery412.com. Hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 9 to 9; Sunday, 9 to 2.
Fet-Fisk
When Nik Forsberg and Sarah LaPonte launched Fet-Fisk as a winter pop-up in 2019, there wasn’t a five-year plan — barely even a one-year plan.
“We didn’t have much direction when we started hosting pop-ups,” Forsberg says. “If anything, the success and the demand of the events pulled us along, rather than us directing the narrative.”
The early dinners were magnetic: Nordic seafood dishes in candlelit spaces, friends passing plates, wines poured fast and loose. Then the pandemic hit, and plans for a permanent home stalled — until late 2021, when Forsberg realized it was time to scale up or burn out.
“I had been running the business as my sole source of income, but realized that I would need to expand in order to make it sustainable,” he says. He teamed up with industry pros Greg Austin (412 Food Rescue) and Kate Romane (Black Radish Kitchen) to craft a business plan, secure funding, and find a space.
Opening in Bloomfield
In March 2024, Fet-Fisk opened in Bloomfield, in the space of the former Lombardozzi’s. It didn’t take long for people to notice, both locally and nationally. By September, it was on The New York Times’ annual list of 50 favorite restaurants in America. In the 2025 James Beard Awards, to be announced June 16, it’s a finalist for Best New Restaurant in the nation.
Even with a permanent home, Fet-Fisk (a Swedish phrase meaning “greasy fish”) keeps the pop-up soul alive. “We were very attentive to both the space” — LaPonte is creative director — “and the menu to continue to inspire that sense of intimacy and community,” Forsberg says.
Rooted in Nordic traditions and Appalachian ingredients, the menu constantly evolves: pickled mackerel over smoked beets, seafood ribollita with white beans in lobster sauce, whey-brined chicken with lingonberry sauce.
Part of what made Fet-Fisk possible, and makes Pittsburgh’s ground fertile for pop-ups, is the city’s collaborative spirit. “The chef scene in Pittsburgh has always seemed to lean collaborative, rather than competitive, in my experience,” Forsberg says. “There is a mutual understanding of the difficulty of the industry that we share and commiserate over.”
From 250 Pop-Up Dishes to a Refined Menu
The years of pop-ups weren’t just rehearsal. Forsberg estimates they served more than 250 different dishes before opening. Only six made the permanent menu, refined and sharpened along the way.
Still, the shift to brick-and-mortar wasn’t easy. “When we first opened, I felt like I was in a time machine, or stuck on the fast-forward function on a VCR,” he says. In the pop-up days, menus could change overnight. Now, every tweak takes weeks of testing.
“We’re steering a big barge now,” Forsberg says. “I miss that boundless creativity … but I’m glad everything we use on a daily basis has a permanent home now.”
Fet-Fisk: 4786 Liberty Avenue, Bloomfield, fetfisk.net. Hours are Thursday to Monday, 5 to 10.
Story by Aakanksha Agarwal