Southside Works

I didn't think Pittsburgh was going to give me blog material today. We went to the Carnegie Museums and while you need about 10 hours to fully get through two of the four, it didn't *inspire* me other than being a very very big impressive museum.

Then we found another shopping center. This place was very different from the Strip so it deserves its own blog. It's called the Southside Works. It's a shopping center with a huge, gorgeous Cheese Cake factory sitting in the middle like a palace. In front of the Cheesecake factory is a little plaza, like a courtyard, to further make the impression of the palace like building being the center of everything. Which I think was a wise choice, I am fully in support of the cheesecake factory getting to place of honor. What can I say, I'm a little too fond of dessert.

There is nothing gritty or cheap about this place. Even the movie theater, while having normal ticket prices, has a nice carpeted grand staircase you go up to get to concessions and the theaters. It's decorated in the Art Deco style, evoking a 1920's feel and again breaking from the feel of it being a chain. Another point for Pittsburgh and their refusal to fill up plazas with chain stores.

The restaurants and stores are more upscale, and the fast food places are hidden up a block, even those are Qudoba and Subway and a neat pita place rather than the typical Wendy's and McDonald's.

One restaurant was McCormick and Shmicks, a very expensive seafood place. There was a large bookstore and little boutique shops, the only one I recognized was a Forever 21, oh, and a New York and Company. It was neat, clean and a lovely place to go for a date night movie and dinner or to just feel trendy. A few blocks up it became a popular night hotspot with a street lined with bar after bar (but nothing down in the dumps, places young people would like to go) and a few more small restaurants.

Unlike the Strip, it was more of a shopping center for well established and very reputable stores rather than unique ethnic and vendors or independent artists. It also upped Blackstone in quality and accessibility, with shops along the street and centered around the courtyard rather than in a huge plaza. This way you could enjoy walkways and sidewalks without everything being clustered around a massive parking lot. I found it much more pleasing to the eye and to getting from store to store.

I don't think I'd be a regular there but for movies, there are 5 dollar Mondays and with a student ID you get a dollar off, so for the cinema and a nice meal out to the Cheesecake Factory, which I very very very highly recommend from repeat experiences, it is absolutely perfect.

A great, great place for a weekend date. Perhaps to spend money saved from shopping at the Strip on a dinner and movie.

Southside Works website: with picture of the courtyard, cheesecake factory and theater to the right on the homepage, check out what I mean!

http://www.southsideworks.com/