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| - While we were in Pittsburgh for the Winter Classic on New Years Day, we figured we'd see what the area had to offer for NYE. My wife and I, along with my friend and his girlfriend hit up Sing Sing in Homestead. It's apparently located on what was the site of one of the largest steel mills in the area. When it closed they turned the entire site into a large outdoor shopping and entertainment development. The only remaining artifacts from what once was, were the nine or so original mill smoke stacks still standing at the primary entrance. Pretty cool.
Sing Sing, which is a piano bar, is attached to the Rock Bottom Brewery and serves a selection of RBB's in-house brews and shares a similar menu. There are no TV's, no sports memorabilia (which is rare for this city), and no big booths for large groups. This place is all about being a cabaret with the focus on the musicians. Mind you this isn't a bad thing, just note that if you want a bar, go next door or across the street to Dave and Busters. I'd say Sing Sing holds about 150 people seated.
This particular night they were hosting a (shocker) NYE's party. For $40 bucks a person you got a choice of two entrees (beef tenderloin tips or lemon chicken), veggies, mashed potatoes, one free drink coupon, a midnight champagne toast, and, what turned out to be over four hours of non-stop music. Again... Pretty Cool.
There were three musicians holding down the fort playing more than just piano (drums, electric synth, bass guitar, and apparently I missed the sax). There was plenty of crowd involvement. As in most piano bars you request songs along with a tip. The larger the tip, the better chance of hearing your song you have. I put three requests on a sheet with a 10 and managed to get two played. Their rendition of Toto's Africa was fantastic and surprisingly, my curve ball got hit out of the park when one of the guys actually knew the tune and words to the Theme from TV's "Growing Pains." I was sold from that point on.
I will take this time to note that this is NOT a family friendly joint. I'm not sure if it was 21+ only but I certainly wouldn't bring anyone too young to drive. A good amount of sexual refrences and strong language awaits you.
Drinks were stiff and not horribly overpriced. I think rail mixed drinks were $7.00 and beers were 6 or so (RBB doesn't brew anything I particularly enjoy so I stuck with rum and cokes). All and all my bill wasn't scary and I'm not used to that on Dec 31st. Waitress staff was really nice and incredibly attentive. No complaints there.
The only down side to everything was group seating as you're sitting at 2-top cab tables. It was easily fixed though as the group next to us was up for rearranging tables from side to side to front to back (allowing us to talk and share food/booze etc), also, being a tourist, we had no idea how hard it would be to get a cab in Homestead. Understandably NYE has its issues with cab availability but we had to wait 2.5 hours for a cab because, as we found out, Homestead is a very suburban community right outside of the city and everyone drives.
Ooops!
All and all a good time and someplace I'd certainly return to if for any reason I'd be back in Pittsburgh... as long as I have a car.
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