Exploring Pittsburgh's Shadyside Neighborhood

Even though I’m a Pittsburgh native, I’m still surprised by all this city has to offer. Pittsburgh has around 90 different neighborhoods, and I wasn’t able to explore many of them until I started attending Carnegie Mellon. One of my favorite neighborhoods close to the CMU campus is Shadyside. It’s close to campus and is home to a plethora of restaurants, small businesses, shops and off-campus housing for students. I recently spent some time in Shadyside with a friend of mine and wanted to share some of my favorite places in the neighborhood! Shadyside is a 20-minute walk or 10-minute bus ride away using the 71B, 71D and 75 bus lines, all of which are all available for free with your CMU ID! 

First, I was craving Italian food so my friend and I decided to stop by Mercurio’s, a Pittsburgh staple, for lunch. Mercurio’s has multiple locations across the city, and they specialize in Neapolitan pizza and — in my opinion — the best gelato in the city. You can actually purchase pints of their gelato in Scotty’s Market on campus with your CMU meal plan! We decided to order a pizza, two fountain drinks and two cups of gelato with the bill only coming out to $15 per person. Mercurio’s has some of the friendliest staff, and you can watch as they make your food. I highly recommend trying their pistachio gelato! After satiating our hunger we decided to walk around and explore some of the stores on Walnut Street. 

Walnut Street is the center of the Shadyside neighborhood, with stores ranging from clothing stores to jewelry stores to art stores. We ended up visiting three establishments: Sephora, Rite Aid and Toadflax. 

The Shadyside Sephora is always stocked with the latest beauty products, with plenty of testers and very helpful employees. We ended up browsing through the rows of beautiful displays and getting shade matched for a blush. 

Next, we went to Rite Aid to run some errands, but my favorite stop of this trip was Toadflax, a small business we discovered on this outing! Walking in, we were greeted with large floral displays and calming nature sounds and scents. As we explored the many displays of the store, we found many varieties of incense, natural products and handmade soaps. I ended up walking out with a new bar of soap, an incense holder and a new favorite store! 

While I have not been able to explore every store and restaurant during my past trips to Shadyside, I hope I will be able to get close in the next few years. I hope you have the chance to visit Shadyside, and I wanted to leave you all with some more of my recommendations of what to do in this vibrant neighborhood.

Food Recommendations: 
- Prantl’s Bakery - Must try their Burnt Almond Torte! 
- Cafe Moulin - Breakfast 
- Girasole - Italian 
- Fujiya Ramen - Japanese

Store Recommendations: 
- Scribe Fine Papers - Stationery 
- Kawaii Gifts - Stationery, K-pop and Anime Memorabilia 
- Blick - Art Materials 
- Apricot Lan Boutique - Clothing