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| - Nico's is one of my favorite Yinzer bars. I've been going here off and on since I turned 21, even if it was just to stop in for fries at lunch, and it's one of the finest dives around.
We typically stop in here for a fish sandwich and some drinks after the Unblurred gallery crawl in Garfield. Jason bartends on Friday nights, and he's the best. He's one of those bartenders that remembers you after your first visit, and remembers what you drink and keeps the refills coming.
Their food is excellent. The fish sandwich is church-fish-fry good, and the coleslaw is crispy and mayonnaise-d to perfection. But the real treat of this place is the fries. There's something about these fries that I just love. I think they remind me of the homemade fries my grandpa used to make me in his deep fryer when I was a kid. They're kind of like a thinner, jucy-er version of Potato Patch fries. Seriously. Go get some now.
And like other dive bars in Pittsburgh, the prices are cheap. This is the perfect place to sit around with your fellow Yinzers and watch the Buccos or the Pens (or both, if it's that glorious time of year when both seasons are going - they have multiple TVs).
The only thing I don't like about Nico's is that it's one of the few smoking-permitted bars left in town (they, like Thunderbird and the Cage, keep the food prices low to skirt that smoking ban loophole). I've gotten kind of spoiled lately by smoke-free establishments, and I hate coming home stinking like cigarettes.
But the dives in Pittsburgh are all pretty much maintaining the smoking thing, so I can't complain when comparing. All that said, there's no bar I'd rather hang out at than Nico's. :)
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