Zenith

In recognition of National Mirthful Decay Awareness Month, for a modest fee someone on staff will viciously pelt you with a rubber chicken in the back room. Reservations are suggested.

I’m kidding. It’s not really Mirthful Decay Awareness Month, and I am fresh out of rubber chickens anyway.

But it is actually National Pride Month, and Sunday is parade day. It is also the Arts Festival, so if you do happen to hear strange groans from the back room, it will be me beating myself over the head with whatever I can find in lieu of a rubber chicken… for actually opening for brunch anyway.

I think next year I will make my own submission to Congress to name the month of June National Community Events and Traffic Obstruction Month.

Anyway, we have a dandy menu this week, so come on down after you watch the parade, and then go buy some art at the festival. Life is too short to live without art.

There is no good reason for working at The Zenith that I can think of.

The pay is marginal, and we offer no good prospects for a healthy future whatsoever. The workload is gruesome, and the owners have all the personality of a honey badger with a toothache. If you’re looking for a laid-back, chill environment, this is not for you!

But the flip side is—and I say this with a sense of pride—if you can withstand the insanity that will ensue, you will become one of the most employable people in the tri-state area. Even if your state may be slightly less sane than before you started working with us.

The people who stay with us are among some of the best people I know. Many of them return to help out once in a while when their lives get too easy and they need to remember what work is truly like. Perhaps it’s a form of Stockholm syndrome. I don’t know.

But if you can hack it, and tolerate us, something happens…

You become part of the Zenith family.

Sorry. It does happen.

And then you realize we don’t do this just to make money. We’re still working on that part.

We do this because we care.

We care about being a no-waste restaurant. We care about recycling old things in our shop. We care about promoting local artists of all kinds. And most of all, we care about the people who come here and believe in the same things.

The Zenith is a place of freedom of expression, and we believe in the freedom to be whoever you want to be without question. We are an inclusive environment and do not tolerate social prejudice of any kind.

I can’t promise working here will land you in a straitjacket, but I can promise we will provide ample opportunity.

If you have read this far and are still interested, please give us a call at 412-481-4833 or stop by.

We need help particularly on Sundays, but would like to incorporate someone into a day during the week as well.

The Zenith
86 South 26th Street
Pittsburgh, PA
412-481-4833

What a beautiful family! Thanks for sharing your wonderful family with us today:) so many of them came from India to join the Sanghvi gathering! When I asked what they were celebrating they responded… each other! we wish you many years of happiness and joy!

The Zenith will be closed this week for general maintenance; of our sanity.

We have some things we need to get done around here, and besides, this time of year — especially with the upcoming holiday — has been notoriously slow. So we decided to preemptively strike the disappointment and just not open this week!

Thank you for your patience, understanding, and continued support of our strange little corner of the universe.

— Robert
The Zenith

I found this old foot marker in an abandoned cemetery on a hill overlooking Brady’s Bend on the Allegheny River. The church had long since gone, with only a few footstones left scattered along the hillside, but it was a most picturesque location for a house of worship.

Brady’s Bend was named after a Revolutionary War scout who rescued two captured children from a band of Seneca warriors.

This footstone was all that remained. The headstone had either disappeared into the hillside or had been relocated, but I remember thinking it didn’t matter that I didn’t know her name, because the most important aspect had been preserved for time:

MOTHER

When I did the rubbing, a small plant got caught between the paper and the stone, but I liked the symbolism of it, so I kept it.

The plant is long dead now, and so is the mother, but their legacy lives on. Someday, we will be gone too. It is up to us to leave a legacy worthy of the ones who fostered ours.

God bless the mothers.

The Queen of Pittsburgh Belly dancers (and the Queen of Pittsburgh Vegans) is offering a new class if any of you Zenith folks want to shake away the winter cold:)

The Zenith regrets to admit defeat, but we will not be able to open this week.

In the current situation it remains untenable, with lack of parking and the upcoming “Ice Out” national shutdown event. After the losses we took last week—having to throw away and waste so much food—we simply can’t afford another hit like that.

So we’ve decided, quite literally, to remain closed until we can get the “ice out” of our Pittsburgh streets and hopefully return next week, when we’re due for a little thaw.