Kiosk vacancies soon to be filled

First, the popular truck vendors were moved off Bigelow Boulevard across from Hillman… First, the popular truck vendors were moved off Bigelow Boulevard across from Hillman Library to make room for a carousel and pricier hamburgers. Then, new vendors moved into the recently constructed kiosks. After a few months, some of those kiosks became vacant.

Schenley Plaza patrons and faithful vendor diners may find themselves asking: What is going on?

Currently, Schenley Plaza has four stands set up for food vendors. Asia Tea House and Bagel Factory are the original occupants from Schenley Plaza’s opening last year. Another is a temporary ice cream stand that patrons requested during the hot summer months. The last is vacant.

“We have a number of entities that are interested in renting those [empty] kiosks,” Phil Gruszka, director of Management and Maintenance Policies for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, said. “It’ll probably just take a few more weeks before we can come to an agreement with them.”

Gruszka said the competing businesses consist of a health food vendor, an Indian/Pakistani vendor, a large-scale ice cream vendor and a pizza vendor. A pizza vendor and a hot dog vendor once occupied the now-vacant stands in the plaza.

Pittsburgh Fine Dining, Inc., the company who owned those vendors, declined to comment on why its original vendors are no longer there.

In 2001, according to archive news reports, businessman Ed Dunlap planned to resurrect a defunct upscale restaurant called Park Schenley and put it somewhere in central Oakland.

Dunlap, who is also chairman of Centimark Corp., an industrial roofing firm based in Canonsburg, Pa., formed Pittsburgh Fine Dining with his partner, Alex Colaizzi. However, a source at Dunlap’s office said Dunlap currently has no plans to open a restaurant in Schenley Plaza.

Dunlap also owns LeMont restaurant, located on Mount Washington, Jake’s Beef ‘ B-B-Que in Mount Lebanon’s Galleria and the Cafe Euro restaurant and catering service.

He also owned Tambellini’s on Route 51, which had been a Pittsburgh institution for more than 60 years. The restaurant went out of business this summer. Dunlap and his wife Anna have expressed plans to remodel the space and try again with a restaurant called Amici Ristorante.

The original street vendors who left the plaza are now located on Bigelow Boulevard across from the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial.

Rida Amin is one of those vendors. She has been in business eight years and moved into her new location last year. Since the city forced her to move, she estimates her business has gone down 40 to 50 percent.

“It’s too much for a CMU or Pitt student to walk down here,” she said. However, she added that she’s not worried about any future competition should an Indian venue move into Schenley Plaza near her former spot.

“I know my food, and people know me,” she said. “If you go from a franchise it’s like $7 for a sandwich. Students don’t like it. Students want trucks like this, not frozen food.”

Thai Gourmet occupies a spot next to Amin, but owner Tim Vong said he’s the newcomer, and from what he’s heard, the other vendors used to do better business in their old location.”

“[The Schenley Plaza kiosks] are more in a central area where everybody can walk,” he said. “And they have a place to sit down-it’s more convenient in a way.”

Shawn Standefer is a Pitt graduate student who said he visits Amin’s truck sometimes more than three times a week.

“It’s close, fast, cheap and tasty,” he said. “The food at the Indian truck tastes better than food at the nearby restaurants, and they’re friendlier.”

But Standefer does not shop at the Schenley kiosks.

“I’m not a fan,” he said. “The only one I had a good experience with was the pizza one, and it closed down.”

Truck patron Assata Richards is outraged that people like Amin were forced to move.

“We’re a small business community,” she said. “Pittsburgh is unique in that way. Why destroy that to have something come in just because the city thinks it’ll be successful?”

The Schenley Plaza website states that they expect to open a full-scale restaurant sometime in the future. No one from the Parks Conservancy could say for sure who will own that restaurant or what will happen to the existing vendors.