The 1970s inspire chef Kevin Sousa’s new venue in Allentown neighborhood

Paul Guggenheimer | Friday, December 13, 2019 5:12 p.m.

Tribune-Review

Pittsburgh restaurateur Kevin Sousa

Chef Kevin Sousa has always been open to new ideas. After all, he opened a fine dining restaurant in Braddock, a place where a lot people thought it couldn’t be done.

But he didn’t have anything particular in mind for his next venture.

That is until he and his Superior Motors restaurant General Manager Chris Clark walked into an old-fashioned social club known as St. George Lyceum in Allentown. In its heyday, folks would go to the club to hang out, drink beer and smoke to their heart’s content.

“We walked in and he’s a West End kid, I’m a West End kid, and it just looked like we had gotten dropped into a time machine into the ’70s,” said Sousa.

“There was wood paneling and we both literally got chills. We were both like, ‘This has to exist for everybody who is not a 75-year-old, ex-steel worker. It just has to be open to the public.’ ”

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Ring in the new year with us like your grandparents might have at @abcpgh this year. This place is just amazing – I have chills with every discovery. Just speechless

A post shared by SOUSA (@sousapgh) on Dec 11, 2019 at 10:04am PST

Sousa says he and Clark both remembered going to this type of place either with their parents, grandparents or an aunt and uncle, and a warm nostalgic feeling washed over them.

They acquired the place and renamed it Arlington Beverage Club. They will christen it with a New Year’s Eve party before officially opening it this spring. It’s located just a few feet from Hitchhiker Brewing Company’s Winter pop-up bar, a venue where Sousa serves up the grub.

But is there enough of a clientele that shares their feelings for a place with cheap beer signs, linoleum floors, and duckpin bowling in the basement?

“Yes, absolutely,” Sousa said emphatically. “Judging by the fact that we have not done any promotion and the reaction that we’ve gotten just within the Allentown community and Hilltop community has been amazing.

“It’s going to be a really cool neighborhood bar that used to be a social club and that we are keeping intact.”

Beyond installing a full kitchen in the basement and revamping the bar, he intends to leave the place intact. He even plans to resurrect at least one of the duckpin lanes.

The New Year’s Eve event begins at 7:30 p.m., featuring cocktails, crockpot table, live entertainment and champagne at midnight to ring in 2020.

Sousa said that by spring the place will operate seven days a week. It will have a full cocktail program, as well as a spirit-free cocktail program (Sousa doesn’t drink and is 10 years sober). And there will be at least 12 beers on tap including everything from Iron City and Miller High Life to Brew Gentlemen, Hitchhiker and Sierra Nevada.

“You will be able to come for a shot and a beer as well as a cocktail and a glass of rose,” he said.

Sousa plans to serve elevated, bar-inspired food on paper plates, everything from tacos to hamburgers to pierogies.

“We’ll have much better food than any other social club with wood paneling in Pittsburgh,” he said. “I can guarantee you that.”