Wilson’s Bar-B-Q site shaping up
After the fire: Developer hopes to lure a restaurant there
The iconic Wilson’s Bar-B-Q building that burned last fall in the Central North Side is being renovated for possible use as a restaurant.
After a fire on Nov. 5, the popular rib joint that stood in the Mexican War Streets for 50 years was mourned by passersby who huddled in groups to gape at its charred remains.
Meyer Properties purchased the building at 700 N. Taylor Ave. at the end of the year for $60,000. Workmen were seen Monday leveling bricks at the top of the facade to install a new box gutter.
Kate Kay, the design property manager for the family business, was inspecting paint color panels on the sidewalk below.
“We’ve known the Wilsons our whole lives,“said Ms. Kay, who lives several blocks from the building. “George was going to sell before the fire, and he reached out to us. He wants to retire and bottle and sell his sauces.”
Mr. Wilson confirmed this plan in a phone call that he said he had to cut short. He could not be reached later for further comment. He succeeded his father, George Wilson Sr., who began selling barbecue several years before opening the storefront in 1972. He died in 2018.
When the fire started, police alerted Mr. Wilson and his girlfriend, Lynn Hogan, who escaped with their two dogs, from an upstairs apartment. The fire gutted the interior, which still smells of two parts fire, one part barbecue.
“We’re completely restoring the exterior and hoping to find a restaurant” to occupy it, Ms. Kay said. Her brother, property manager Luke Meyer, said it would take about a year to complete the renovation.
Asked about the project cost, Ms. Kay and her brother laughed.
“A lot more than we anticipated,” she said.
The delay in starting the renovation took its toll on the top of the building, which required $50,000 in emergency repairs, Mr. Meyer said.
“The fire didn’t do much structural damage. The bones were still very good. But there was a lot of termite damage,” he said, motioning to a row of ceiling joists between the main restaurant and the back room. When it was operating, Wilson’s had a cafe table outside and a place to sit inside, but almost everyone went in for takeout of ribs, chicken and collard greens.
Ms. Kay is on the board of the Mexican War Streets Society, a nonprofit group that aims to preserve properties in the historic neighborhood. “It’s really important to do right by this property.”
The society’s president, Maggie Connor, an architect, said she is confident of its future.
“We were devastated for the loss of Wilson’s,” she said. “It was not just the War Streets’ loss but Pittsburgh’s as a whole. There is such importance in preserving buildings like that, the corner commercial spaces that hold a place. There was concern about losing another of our historic structures. I’m excited it’s being saved and optimistic it can have a continued wonderful life.”