Stand at the corner of South Braddock and Waverly on a Saturday morning and count the storefronts you can reach without crossing a lane of traffic more than twice. The number has changed. Two years ago a weekend errand run in Regent Square meant a coffee, a walk in Frick, and a drive to Squirrel Hill or East Liberty for anything else. That drive is no longer necessary, and most residents have not yet updated their mental map to reflect it.
The retail infill on South Braddock between roughly the 1000 and 1200 blocks has closed the last honest gaps in a neighborhood weekend. A pizza shop that people used to drive to White Oak for now sits three doors from a new bookstore. A gallery from Brooklyn opened walk-in hours across the street from a plant shop that opened in 2024. The Run Around the Square course still ends in Fern Hollow, and a first-year music festival is landing in the park this summer on the Regent Square side. If you live here, this weekend is the one where you stop treating the business district as a coffee stop and start treating it as the whole afternoon.
Two Saturdays worth marking
Saturday, August 22, 2026 — Run Around the Square. The community race offers a 5K and a 1.5-mile Run/Walk in Pittsburgh's Allegheny neighborhood. The 5K kicks off at 9 AM, taking runners through the streets of Regent Square before transitioning onto the cross-country trails of Frick Park, ending in Fern Hollow. The 1.5 Mile Run/Walk starts at 8:15 AM and invites families to bring their dogs along, but dogs are welcome only in this shorter distance. Pre-race packet pickup is Friday, August 21 from 5:30 to 8:00 PM at the Wilkins School Community Center, 7604 Charleston Avenue in Swissvale, and packets can also be picked up starting at 7:00 AM race day. Online registration remains open through midnight Thursday, August 20.
Summer 2026 — Upstream Music Festival, Frick Park. A first-year festival is launching in the park this summer, and the site sits on the neighborhood's side of the tree line. The site is on the park's Regent Square side, and Rick Sebak lives in the neighborhood. Other acts include DJ Buscrates, the anonymous chronicles, and Colatura. Tickets are $20 general admission, $10 for patrons under 18, and $100 for VIP packages. Proceeds benefit UpstreamPgh, which works to restore and protect the watershed ecosystem. Frick Park Hollow is a clearing located near the intersection of the park's Tranquil Trail and Falls Ravine Trail. If you walk in from Biddle Avenue, you are there in ten minutes.
What actually filled in between 2023 and now
The turnover on South Braddock reads like a series of small local news items until you line them up. Then it reads like a plan.
| Arrival | Address or block | What was there before |
|---|---|---|
| Rockaway Pizzeria | 1137 S. Braddock | Square Cafe, which relocated to East Liberty |
| Hemlock House | 1126 S. Braddock | The Map Room |
| Stay Gold Books | S. Braddock business district | (new to the block) |
| Urban Jungle of Regent Square | S. Braddock, across from Stay Gold | (new to the block) |
| April April gallery | Regent Square | Relocated from Brooklyn |
Rockaway Pizzeria, which had gained a loyal following since its inception in 2017, shuttered its location on Lincoln Way in White Oak, then reopened on May 2 on South Braddock Avenue in Regent Square. Owner Josh Sickels moved his business into the space formerly occupied by the Square Cafe, which relocated to East Liberty. Rockaway opened on May 9 in Regent Square, bringing thin, charred crusts and bold flavors to the neighborhood; owner Josh Sickels, a musician-turned-pizzaiolo, first launched Rockaway in 2017 in White Oak. The same owner is behind Hemlock House three doors down. The owner of Rockaway Pizzeria now has a full-service restaurant in Regent Square that is Lynchian in aesthetics and eats. Hemlock House opened at 1126 S. Braddock Ave., formerly The Map Room.
The retail side matters more than it looks. South Braddock now holds a concentrated cluster of retail additions including Urban Jungle of Regent Square and family-owned Stay Gold Books, marked by its pink storefront. Across the street, Dalene Stangl opened Urban Jungle on May 9 as a "retirement hobby" after 30-plus years in academia. The bright, multi-roomed maze showcases items from large potted plants and terrariums to photography, paintings, and sculpture by local talents. April April moved their commercial gallery from Brooklyn to Regent Square, and gallerists Lucas Regazzi and Patrick Bova cited Pittsburgh's lower cost of living and creative scene; April April has open walk-in hours.
The point is not that any single opening changes the neighborhood. It is that the density on two blocks now supports a Saturday that used to require a car.
Where dinner happens without leaving the district
A workable dinner route through the business district changes with the season, but a few anchors have earned their place. Frick Park Tavern, a local favorite since 2019, is known for a bustling air and comfort food from meatloaf to roasted chicken with sauteed broccolini and whipped potatoes, in a room with patterned wallpaper, a tin ceiling, and dark wood. Rockaway now sits a block away, and the new Regent Square space carries things you cannot find anywhere else in Pittsburgh: the same cheese that Brooklyn's Lucali uses, a yellow margarita pizza using yellow tomatoes, a white pizza with caramelized onions inspired by Best's Pizza, and a refined Sicilian more focaccia-esque than the old formula.
For the earlier end of the day, Spigolo is a new coffee shop on Edgewood Avenue with gluten free bites, quality espresso, and a cozy storefront. Biddle's Escape sells antiques, candles, and ephemera, often has food trucks outside, and pours drinks like an amaretto latte and a Hungarian Szegedi Kave with steamed half-and-half, vanilla sugar, cinnamon, and whipped cream. Madeleine Bakery and Bistro, in the Wilkinsburg-side of Regent Square, does chocolate croissants and morning buns, a short walk down Trenton Avenue from Biddle's.
If the plan for the day includes an exhibit, time it against a Concept opening. Concept Art Gallery, the local Regent Square gallery and fine arts auction house, holds openings in its main upstairs space above the auction house and in the annex space beneath the theater-like marquee. The marquee, incidentally, is what remains of the neighborhood's arthouse cinema. Concept Art Gallery found expansion space in the adjacent Regent Square Theater, the former art house movie theater run by Pittsburgh Filmmakers, which has been closed since 2019 with several revival efforts stalled. The iconic marquee will remain, with the gallery hoping to keep it for artist interactions or to advertise shows and auctions. If you moved here after 2019, the marquee is a piece of local history you now watch a gallery reprogram in real time.
The park side, on foot
Frick Park is the amenity people talk about when they describe the neighborhood, but the entry points shape how you actually use it. From the business district, the closest gateway is the Frick Environmental Center. Nestled into a sloping hillside and clad in locally harvested black locust, the Center is a gateway to the 644-acre Frick Park, a LEED-Platinum building that serves as a living classroom for environmental education. The outdoor restrooms are open 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Frick Park itself is open 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., and the Center is a welcome facility, education hub, and gateway to Frick Park.
Around the corner, 3 Rivers Outdoor Co. is the community hinge between the retail district and the park. The venue stocks recreation gear and runs a full lineup of events including book clubs, film screenings, yoga classes, group runs, Music Mondays on the front patio, and monthly full moon hikes under the canopy of Frick Park. Co-founder Christine Ferrari-Iksic cited proximity to Frick Park as a leading draw, to host trail runs and mountain bike rides weekly.
For residents who want their weekend to have a small civic dimension, the Regent Square Civic Association runs a short business-district planter cleanup, meeting in front of Frick Park Tavern at 3 PM, tidying planter areas and helping keep the trees healthy in the business district. An hour with a trowel is a low-friction way to meet the people you have been standing next to at Biddle's for months.
The quiet part
The reason to notice all of this at once is not nostalgia and not boosterism. It is that Regent Square, which for years has been described as "small and walkable" with a caveat, no longer needs the caveat. Two blocks of South Braddock now hold two galleries with regular openings, two independent bookstores, a plant shop, an outdoor retailer that hosts weekly runs, four sit-down restaurants worth returning to, and a pastry shop within a five-minute walk. That density is the story. The Aug 22 race and the Upstream festival are the calendar hooks that give a resident a reason to test the claim.
The people we work with who buy into Regent Square usually mention Frick Park first and the business district second. Within a year of moving in, the order tends to flip.
If you are thinking about how a Regent Square home might fit into the life you are quietly building around these two blocks, Allison Pochapin is glad to have a longer conversation. Schedule a consultation when the timing is right.