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Dave Jackley
Hi, Dave Jackley here. I’m with Susan Certo, owner of Sienna Mercado, right down here at Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh. And welcome to another edition of ExactlyAtHome North of Pittsburgh.
So Susan, I think the unique thing is you’ve got three restaurants under one roof. Tell me about that.
Susan Certo
Well, thanks, Dave, for having us here. That’s right. We are at Sienna Mercado, which is located at 942 Penn Avenue right in the heart of the cultural district, downtown Pittsburgh. And as Dave mentioned, it is a very unique concept and we’re very proud of it and we think it brings a lot to the city of Pittsburgh, Sienna Mercado. Mercado stands for marketplace in Italian. Sienna Mercado is a unique venue that has three separate unique complimentary floors, each with a different Italian themed restaurant in it. Our first floor is called Emporio, a meatball joint. The second floor is called Mezzo which actually means “middle” in Italian, and the third floor is Il Tett0 which is a again means top and Italian. And it’s a rooftop beer garden which gives you amazing views of the city.
Dave Jackley
Well you know what, here we are on the rooftop right now. The roof is open. The sun is coming down. It is a gorgeous day. There’s a balcony here for great views of the city. This is fantastic. So I’ll tell you what, Susan what if I step behind the camera to give us a tour?
Susan Certo
We’re standing in Santa Mercado rooftop garden. It was named the the 2021 Pittsburgh CityPaper “Best Rooftop Bar,” so we’re very excited about that. When you enter the rooftop you can see that we have a retractable roof that it opens year round and in warmer weather we have a balcony with great views that we love of the city of Pittsburgh. We serve 32 craft beers with a very upscale light menu. Some of the menu items we serve include olives, ricotta toast, Arancini (special Italian rice and cheese and meat balls) gourmet popcorn and we have some amazing drink specials. This is a very fun, casual, open air restaurant as you can see that we have a retractable roof that opens year round and you have the best views of the city downtown for a wonderful venue for cocktails.
Susan Certo
So now we’re sitting in Mezzo which means “middle” in Italian. Mezzo is a warm a chef inspired farm to table venue and the decor is very farm. There are many artisinal cheeses, meats, cheeses, pizza, and small and large plates for everyone to enjoy. And it’s just an intimate nice area to enjoy family and friends.
Dave Jackley
So tell me Susan Here we are in the first floor, Emporio. What’s special about this place?
Susan Certo
So we are the first floor, Emporio and it is called a meatball joint is dedicated to everything meatball. We like to think of it as the art of the meatball. And these meatballs are gourmet, hand made and ordered custom by you, so you have plenty of options and ways to make your your meatball meal special. You can put it on a salad you can put it on a sandwich, you can put it on pasta. So every time you come in it can be a different dining experience depending on your custom order. A little fact that I heard from our chef this morning, is that we have made we make over a million meatballs per year. And since we’ve been out we’ve made 10 million meatballs here at Emporio. Wow.
Dave Jackley
As we look around the first floor, you have open air to the street, and an outdoor dining area.
Susan Certo
And it’s nice to have an outdoor sidewalk dining area, which you see in many major metropolitan cities and it’s nice to enable you to sit outside and have your meal or not a cocktail with friends and family. So you kind of get an idea of sitting out and if you’re in a big city so it’s very nice.
Dave Jackley
And I understand the city’s cooperated with you and giving you some more street floorspace so to speak!
Susan Certo
That’s right. Yes, so during the pandemic after we’d opened up and we were allowed to have outdoor dining, the city changed the rules a little bit that we can have seating on the sidewalk and also take a little bit of the street area and open up some tables there. So, the whole site and avenue made it very, very diner friendly. There you’ll see greenery, you’ll see potted plants and twinkle lighting. It’s such a great dining experience for anybody to come downtown and try any of these restaurants around Penn Avenue, a really special experience.
So tell me how would you describe the ambience of this particular concept?
I describe the ambience as farm inspired: upscale, but casual. And then we have an open air concept that opens up and you have street views of Penn Avenue so you can feel like you’re sitting outside. It’s beautiful.
Dave Jackley
Well Susan Certo, thank you so much for your time. Here we are at Sienna Mercado with the three dining concepts:
Susan Certo
And they are Emporio, a meatball joint; Mezzo, which is obviously middle in Italian and Il Tetto, our rooftop garden.
Dave Jackley
You really need to check this out. And if you’re coming downtown for any reason at all, a ballgame, an outing, or on a great night like today where you can have open air dining, three concepts all in one place, a nice walkable street. You should check this out. So thanks for tuning in. And see us again next time on ExactlyAtHome North of Pittsburgh.
