Lot at Edgewater brings chops, cigars to Oakmont
A new-age diner/chop house/ drinkery/cigar bar has opened in Oakmont.
The Lot at Edgewater sits on the fringe of the Edgewater development along Allegheny Avenue and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday. It has been open for two weeks for breakfast and lunch and will open for dinner officially on Thursday.
“I wanted to bring some of the city to the suburbs but keep the prices reasonable,” says John Keefe, who also owns Carnivores and The Pub at 333 in Oakmont. So under one roof, he has pulled together a diner with a modern feel and an open bar that switches to a steakhouse in the evening. The Lot also is a watering hole for cigar smokers in the upper level.
The 140-seat restaurant with an industrial high ceiling is filled with natural light during the day as it is surrounded by tall windows on three sides. This warmth juxtaposes pleasantly with the cool gray and blue colors and
white brick walls. To the left of the huge bar, accordion doors open to a 1,200-squarefoot patio, and to its right is a dining area with tables and booths. More seating is available behind the bar area.
Chef Dom Caputo, former sous chef at Meat & Potatoes, Downtown, serves the usual breakfast suspects such as bacon, sausage, omelets and waffles ($3-$8), in addition to nouveau dishes such as steak and eggs with a teriyaki marinade ($15), avocado toast with pepper jam and a fried egg ($6), steelcut oats with coconut milk ($4) and red wine-braised short rib hash ($12) in the new-age diner.
Breakfast is available from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. and overlaps with lunch, which is served 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. It features deli sandwiches such as Roast Turkey Club ($9), Smoked Pork Belly ($10) and Veggie BLT (which translates to Brie, arugula and tomato; $10) and deli sides such as five-bean, macaroni, potato and egg salads and barbecue chips ($3-$4). Soups (butternut squash bisque and clam chowder) and salads (Caprese and spinach) also are available.
At 4 p.m. The Lot becomes a chop house and features 20ounce Delmonico steaks ($42) and 48-ounce bone-in ribeyes ($56) that can be ordered with rubs, sauces and finishing butters along with pork, veal and lamb chops ($28-$42), starters such as roasted bone marrow ($12), tomato and fennel risotto ($18), salads, soups and main courses such as osso buco pasta fagioli ($29), Airline chicken ($24), and charred cabbage and cauliflower with cashew nuts and pomegranate ($18).
The central bar area is the first thing that catches your attention when you enter The Lot. Mr. Keefe says he took a month to pick out the bar chairs, which he calls the “Cadillac of stools.” “As a drinkery, we have every great bourbon, scotch and whiskey and 400 bottles of wine in a temperature-controlled wine room,” he says. The bar also offers 30 craft cocktails with housemade syrups, boozy milkshakes and spiked coffee for after dinner as well as breakfast lattes and mochas.
The cigar bar in the upper level is called the Ionadi Room after Greg Ionadi, who owns Smoke n’ Guns shop in Oakmont and helped Mr. Keefe select the cigars and humidors. The mahogany paneled darkish room has a 12-seat bar, cushy leather tub chairs and personal lockers where smokers can store their boxes of cigars (and keep them fresh), lighters and cutters. There also is a conference table that can be used for business meetings. Appetizers can be ordered when the cigar bar opens in a day or two. “It’s a place to relax,” Mr. Keefe says.
There are seven televisions in the cigar bar and seven downstairs, however, Mr. Keefe has no plans to add sports bar to The Lot’s description. “The televisions are not meant to be the focal point,” he says. “We are really going for a class-casual place that has a feel of the city.”