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| - I don't think it's much of a secret that Salt of the Earth has been serving some of the best cocktails in Pittsburgh for a while now. Therefore, it's not suprising that if you take one of their outstanding bartenders and put her in another place, there will be great cocktails.
I visited Harvard & Highland with a group of friends this past Saturday night. Arrived on the earlier side, grabbed a table, and ordered cocktails from the very creative list of original creations available. Overall, the space is small (as big as Union downstairs) but has great floor to ceiling windows that look out on the street corner. There were about 4 tables on the left, a few stand-up tables, a few wooden beach chairs near the corners, and about 8 seats at the small bar. Being fairly new, the place still had the nice smell of fresh-cut wood!
After our waiter delivered our cocktails, that was the last we saw of him for the evening. After a long time wondering why he hadn't come back, I saw him in street clothes with a backpack heading out the door. No other person came by to take our orders. Getting impatient, for the rest of the evening we had to get our drinks directly from the bar which was challenging because the place was getting more and more crowded. By around midnight, H&H was jammed packed and there seemed to be only 2 bartenders frantically working. It was clear they were very understaffed.
If Harvard & Highland stays as popular as it was this past Saturday, they're going to need to hire more help. Their inability to keep up with the crowd almost certainly cost them money (we ourselves would have ordered more had we the opportunity). I suspect this will change as H&H figure out when they're going to be the most crowded.
It's important to note that cocktails are the only thing on the menu. There's a few non-alcoholic seltzer drinks. I was surprised there wasn't a selection of high-end bourbon or other hard alcohols if you didn't want one of the speciality cocktails. There's also no food at all (but Union is downstairs if you want to eat beforehand).
This is a great space with a great bartender and a lot of potential. I hope that in the future they'll increase their number of servers and offer something to munch on while people enjoy some of the best cocktails in Pittsburgh.
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