I was watching the news when I heard Benkovitz closed for good! I was floored, you could have knocked me over with a feather. This place was pure pittsburgh, a landmark, an iconic restaurant in the Strip.
As a kid, we'd all get in my cousin's car on a friday night during Lent and go to Benkovits and order fish sandwiches and bring them back home to our waiting family. Sometimes we'd order as many as 17 sandwiches with fries and onion rings and walk back into the house with 7 bags of food. Of course the kids would sit on the living room floor and the adults would eat at the table. Oh those memories!
Those fish sandwiches were huge, each sandwich housing two huge pieces of battered cod and those hand cut fries. Made Lent worth giving up meat.
Benkovitz was a Strip icon since the sixties, but in business for over 100 years. When PNC Park opened in 2001 a Benkovits was there, selling those fish sandwiches in their own little corner of the stadium.
I'll miss them, they were a part of Pittsburgh and I and the rest of Pittsburgh will miss them! Thank you for 100 great years!