SIMPLE & GOOD
It’s been 30 years! 30 years of serving big portions of home-cooked food and strong drinks at a value price!
Located near the corner of South Craig Street and Forbes Avenue in Oakland, Union Grill is practically across the street from Carnegie Museum and Carnegie Library. Union Grill is within a five minute walk from both Pitt and CMU campuses, and very convenient to Pittsburgh’s UPMC hospitals.
We opened way back on June 13th, 1994 [the day O.J. Simpson DIDN'T do it] with an inexpensive, comfort-food menu of classic Pittsburgh food. Very little has changed from those early days. We still serve Oakland’s Best Burger, the Chophouse Burger, which is made from a blend of 40-day-aged Sirloin, Brisket and Steak Trimmings – available ONLY at Union Grill.
Our claim to fame is the Turkey Devonshire, which has been featured in many publications and most recently on The Travel Channel’s “Delicious Destinations” with Andrew Zimmern.” The Turkey Devonshire – oven-roasted slices of Turkey piled on toast points, topped with a Four-Cheese sauce, bacon & tomatoes and broiled to a bubbly golden brown – was originated by Pittsburgh’s legendary chef, Frank Blandi, in the 1940’s. (The Sicilian immigrant named it after nearby Devonshire Street, to make it sound “English.”) Today, we are recognized as the Pittsburgh restaurant that is most faithfully carrying on the tradition of the Turkey Devonshire.
Despite serving an average of over 500 customers a day, Union Grill retains the feel of a neighborhood bar and grill. We’ve been referred to as “Oakland’s Cheers” and we have the most diverse clientele imaginable! Stop in after work any weekday and you’ll find university students, UPMC doctors, Shadyside and Squirrel Hill residents, professors, museum-goers, kids, and visitors from around the world. Due to Union Grill’s close proximity to the major event centers in Oakland, like Carnegie Music Hall, Soldier’s and Sailor’s Memorial Hall, and the University of Pittsburgh’s Petersen Events Center, we are the perfect place to meet before or after an event in Oakland.
Carnegie Mellon and University Pitt Students and Faculty make up a huge portion of our clientele, and we’re a tradition when it comes to university family visits – orientations, homecomings, parents’ weekends and graduations.
We take our reputation for being Oakland’s most centrally-located watering hole very seriously. And we try our best to keep up with the ever-expanding Pittsburgh Craft Beer Renaissance. “Neighborhood Craft Drafts” is a totally unique draft beer program. Since we only have space for 10 taps (unlike new bars, who may feature over 100) we choose our beers very carefully. We sell mainly local microbrews. (Plus a few MACRObrew classics for your Grandpap.) We serve our drafts the WRONG WAY – in Frosty, Frozen mugs. [Any Beer Geek will tell you that a frozen mug lessens the beer’s taste. Well... room temperature mugs are available on request… we’ll keep drinking out of the Frozen ones!] Prices are too low. For example, a Triple IPA from Hitchhiker Brewing is $6.75 and a reliable old Yuengling is only $4.25. Want to know something good? Ever since the end of the pandemic, we've been running a LATE NIGHT HALF-PRICE HAPPY HOUR. All drinks are HALF-PRICE for our last two hours of business, which are 7 to 9 on Sundays and Mondays, and 8 to 10 on Wednesdays through Saturdays. Getting back to the subject of that $4.25 Yuengling... it'll only cost you $2.12 and a half cent during LATE NIGHT HALF-PRICE HAPPY HOUR. Want to know something better? We round DOWN and we'll eat that half cent!
Copper Mug Mules are definitely “a thing” here – we have a whole list of them and they sell for only $7. We are proud to be the first bar in Pittsburgh with craft-brewed Ginger Beer ON TAP, thanks to Pittsburgh's own Jackworth Ginger Beer! Our LATE NIGHT HALF PRICE HAPPY HOUR takes Copper Mug Mule prices down to $3.50.
If you find yourself in Oakland and are wondering, "Where do the locals eat?" the answer is Union Grill.