I happened to be in town on business right around the time of the 6/26 D.R.I. show, so I got my first taste of the 31st Street Pub during that visit.
This is one intimate venue, especially if the place is crowded (I'm assuming the show I attended was one of the more crowded ones, as I was told beforehand it was "almost sold out").
Inside, the place isn't very wide (30-40 feet of available space maybe?), with a bar running most of the length of the building up the right side. From the very back of the club to the stage appeared to be somewhere between 100 and 120 feet.
The ambiance in here is "punk rock dive bar" through and through. Posters, flyers and stickers cover almost every inch of available space. Behind the bar, there was more of the same, but also a long shelf/cabinet filled with skulls. There's also a section of ceiling, from about mid-bar to the end closest to the stage, that has autographed cymbals attached to it. Acts both big and small have passed through the doors of this place, from the looks of those cymbals.
Other reviews have mentioned the scrolling electronic sign that "disses" some of the older Pittsburgh music venues, which was a fun little touch.
The stage only stands about 18 inches tall, if I had to guess, didn't look to be more than about 20 feet wide, and there was an obstruction on the left of the stage in the form of some speakers. A musician could easily be obscured behind that thing if they're not into moving around too much.
Despite my concerns, the sound system was up to par, and all of the bands sounded pretty clear.
I had to hit the bathroom twice over the course of the evening, and the men's room was about what you'd expect from a place like this. It was small (two people could be in there at once, max) and filled with stickers and graffiti.
There were plenty of cheap beer options, but not nearly enough craft brews for my liking. There were only two that really caught my eye, and one of them was totally tapped out after I'd only been in the door for about five minutes. On the plus side, those couple of craft brews were the expensive ones on the list, and only cost $4.50 apiece. While still expensive considering the average price of a six-pack, it was still way less than the $7-$8 I was expecting to be socked with.
I had a 1.7-mile walk back to my hotel after the show, so I knew I had to keep things in check (beer-wise) if I wanted to get back in one piece. So I switched to bottled water pretty early on, and was glad to find out they were only a buck apiece.
All in all, three bottled waters and a single craft brew only ran me $7.50 (minus tips), so it was a pretty economical evening.
Call me a wimp if you must (go ahead, it's okay), but after years and years of clubs prohibiting smoking, it was tough for me to adjust to the fact that smoking was allowed in here. I was enshrined in a cloud of smoke most of the night from the people around me, and I smelled dreadful (well, more dreadful than usual) when I got back to my room.
But, enough of all that...
To sum up, intimacy is the key to a place like this. There probably isn't a bad spot in the place to watch a band. Towards the end of D.R.I.'s set, I went to the merch area (right near the entrance), which is about as far as you could be from the stage, and was still able to see everything taking place on stage.
I'm not often in Pittsburgh, but the next time I get an opportunity to see a show here, I'm totally down.