The Pitt News
T h e i n d e p e n d e n t s t ude nt ne w spap e r of t he U niversity of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | MARCH 24, 2021 | Volume 111 | Issue 80
BEER AND WINE EDITION Cover by Carolyn Pallof | Senior Staff Photographer
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Pitt alumni ‘brewing’ their way to success pittnews.com
Oakland bars, restaurants adapt to restrictions with increased takeout Ashton Crawley
Assistant News Editor With continued restrictions and less students on campus due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, bars and restaurants in Oakland have had to adapt in a number of new ways. Bars have been changing their operations for more than a year now. Takeout cocktails and beers are one strategy allowing businesses to stay open, since they can’t seat anyone at the bar without serving food. Gov. Tom Wolf announced that beginning April 4, alcohol service in bars and restaurants will be allowed without the purchase of food, and indoor dining capacity will be raised to 75%. Gene’s Place, run by Gene Ney, is located
on Louisa Place. Ney has only sold takeout cocktails, drafts and other specials for the past few months, but on April 4, he is planning to open the bar again at a limited capacity. “Business is a fraction of what it used to be and we’ve been doing takeout because in order to have people in here, you have to have food,” Ney said. “Unless something changes, I expect we’ll be open at 75% capacity [on April 4].” Besides running Gene’s Place, Ney is a part-time professor at Carlow University. Ney purchased the bar in 2004 and has been running it ever since. “I live off my teaching salary,” Ney said. “I’ll have nights where I sell less than $30, I
have nights I do better than that.” Ney said business during the pandemic has varied, but more people have been coming in now that they are vaccinated. “It’s been hit and miss,” Ney said. “I think there is an upswing. This semester in general, people just have a more positive outlook. And I feel like there’s light at the end of the tunnel.” Even after partially opening the bar again, Ney plans on continuing his takeout drinks and signature growlers — a mason jar filled with beer that can be returned and refilled. Takeout drinks have been popular at Gene’s Place, especially on St. Patrick's Day, Ney said. Butterjoint, located on North Craig Street, has also been serving cocktails to go.
Tim Randall, the general manager of Butterjoint, said before COVID-19, the restaurant was already transitioning to a more casual setting. Before the creation of Butterjoint, the restaurant was called Legume, but the building now serves as a bakery and takeout place. Butterjoint has been selling takeout food along with cocktails and packaged beer. Randall added that Butterjoint’s curated selection of beers sets it apart from other businesses selling takeout cocktails and beer. “I think it really forced us to innovate and to realize there are certainly other places that sell to-go cocktails and beer, but we were able, through our bar manager, to develop a See Bars on page 5
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Students report drinking less during pandemic Allison Radziwon Staff Writer
When the COVID-19 pandemic caused bars to shut down, 23-year-old Jonathan Perlman’s drinking habits completely changed. Instead of going out to bars on weekends with his friends, he found himself staying inside to drink. “Definitely more bars before COVID, and a lot of craft breweries where you go in and sample a bunch of beers,” Perlman, a fifth-year mechanical engineering major, said. “Now I’ll just go to the breweries to pick up beer, or go to the distributor and pick up beers and just drink here at my house.” With the ongoing pandemic, the added stress, fear and uncertainty has led many to develop new habits as a way to cope. According to the American Psychological Association, 22% of people reported binge drinking in February 2020, which rose to 27% in April 2020. One study found that 60%
of binge drinkers increased their alcohol consumption during lockdown. But with many college students at Pitt, that doesn’t seem to be the case. According to Student Affairs spokesperson Janine Fisher, the number of alcohol violations on campus has gone down this academic year. “While I am unable to provide those specific numbers at this time, I am able to report that our alcohol violations have decreased this year,” Fisher said. Natalie Karter, a 22-year-old Pitt alumna, said she drank “occasionally” before the pandemic began. Karter, who graduated with a biology degree last December, said she hasn’t gone to a bar or a party since last year. “[I’m] definitely [drinking] less frequent! If you took a year from before COVID and a year during COVID, definitely the number of times have decreased a lot,” Karter said. “Now I haven’t gone out at all, to bars or parties. Just drinking here [at home].”
Students have been changing the ways they celebrate their 21st birthdays since April. Many of Perlman’s friends turned 21 over the past year, and the pandemic greatly changed their birthday plans. While some continued to go out, he said others opted to stay home and celebrate. “One of [my friends] went to the bars and got COVID, and that was bad, but the others just went to the store and got stuff and had a three-person event at our place,” Perlman said. “That wasn’t bad. Others have just been having smaller events, definitely changing it up.” As for his friend who got COVID-19, Perlman said he thankfully recovered. “He was in bed for days while quarantined, so he learned his lesson,” Perlman said. “He felt bad about it, too, so he didn’t make that mistake again.” Meanwhile, Karter celebrated her friend’s 21st birthday with her safely by going to a socially distanced restaurant. “For one of my friends, we went to
Applebee’s — like three of us just went — and got some drinks, socially distanced. That was about mid-October, at a better point when things weren’t as bad,” Karter said. “And another friend just stayed home and drank with her family.” For other students, the amount of drinking has increased dramatically. A 19-year-old sophomore who preferred to remain anonymous said their drinking habits have greatly changed, going from “very casual” to an “almost daily” occurrence. The student added that they find themselves purchasing alcohol to seek “relaxation from the daily stresses of being online and socially isolated.” For Perlman, he said he’s looking forward to being able to go back to the bars again soon. “I wasn’t too sad when everything first closed up. I’ve had my fun,” he said. “But I’m going out again once I get the vaccine.”
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Opinions
Pandemic stress exacerbates harm in drinking among students
Dalia Maeroff
Senior Staff Columnist Coming from a giant public high school where nearly everyone partied, I was astonished when I came to college and realized that there were college students who didn’t drink. I was even more astonished when I realized just how many people in college used drinking as a coping mechanism for just about everything in their lives — from breakups to a bad grade on an exam, to coping with social anxiety. Just about every aspect of stereotypical college life has disappeared due to the COVID-19 pandemic, except for disastrous unchecked mental health issues, binge drinking and the occasional maskless party in a South O apartment. I haven’t been to a South O party in over a year. Is it still just as gross and as much of a stupid threat to human life? Drinking culture fluctuates every time society changes, from the prohibition era to today, during a pandemic, when drinking has not surprisingly become the ultimate coping mechanism for a country’s collective mental health problem gone too far. For college students, the problem is clearer than ever before — we are not okay and many of us are using heavy drinking to cope. This comes at a detrimental price. I did a physics project back in high school about noise pollution and came across a study about birds under extreme prolonged stress from the loudness of the factories that their nests were next to. Interestingly enough, the bird’s stress chemical levels were not high — as they should be in organisms experiencing high stress — they were abnormally low. The same thing happens in people after prolonged stress, such as in people with PTSD and chronic stress. We are now a year into the pandemic, and
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more people than ever are struggling with prolonged chronic stress and pandemic-induced PTSD. When you perceive a threat, your brain sends out signals to release adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline gets you through the threat, and cortisol — the stress hormone — suppresses immune
making our baseline levels of cortisol lower. This reduces the body’s ability to regulate the fight or flight response and interrupts the body’s normal functions. It brings along all the side effects of basic normal stress, along with an increased risk of a variety of other physical and
Dalia Maeroff senior staff illustrator
system responses, your reproductive system, your digestive system and any other bodily functions that aren’t necessary when your body is in fight or flight mode. The body’s stress response normally stops when stress stops and adrenaline, cortisol, heart rate and blood pressure return to baseline levels, and bodily systems regain normal function. But what happens when the stress never ends? When the body’s stress response is constantly activated, overexposure to cortisol causes the body to regulate itself by
mental symptoms including anxiety, depression, headaches, sleeping problems and memory and concentration impairment — strangely enough, all things that make learning extra difficult, and all things that have become ever more prevalent in college students during the pandemic. Chronic stress and subsequent anxiety and depression combined with an unhealthy bout of social isolation are all drinking triggers that seem to be plaguing today’s college students more than any strain of COVID-19. Pre-pandemic,
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Gen Z had the highest levels of depression and anxiety compared to any generation before us, and the pandemic is only exacerbating the mental health crisis of 18- to 23-year-olds in this country. Studies show that the amount of drinking people do has increased during the pandemic. Chronic stress, combined with trauma are primary suspects. Substance abuse generally increases after societal traumatic events, such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks or a pandemic. Studies show that adults ages 18 to 39 have the highest probability of increased alcohol use. People ages 18 to 39 with depressive symptoms had 64% greater odds of increased alcohol use. Of all adults with increased alcohol use during the pandemic, 59% experienced anxiety, and 41% experienced depression. The worst thing is the vicious cycle of it all. The pandemic is worsening drinking habits and mental health, and increased stress and drinking make the immune system weak, making you more susceptible to catching COVID. When you feel the stress getting to you, instead of reaching for the bottle, it is much healthier to take a break for work and school for a bit. Going for a walk outside, exercising for a bit, dancing in your room, talking to a friend or seeking professional help are all things you can do to significantly reduce stress. We are all struggling mentally and physically, and the last thing we should do is add to the problem by drinking. Dalia Maeroff writes primarily about issues of psychology, education, culture and environmentalism. Write to her at DAM291@pitt.edu.
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Bars, pg. 2 really great curated beer list. The beers that we carry on our shelves, you won’t find all of these in one place,” Randall said. Randall said he thinks the cocktails have succeeded because people want to have the feeling of dining out and having others make your drinks, rather than making them at home. “Everybody’s a little bit sick of their own cooking and I think we all miss that feeling of being together and having someone else take care of the details,” Randall said. “Maybe you don’t keep a full bar at home and the notion that you only need a spritz of something to make a cocktail feel special is not going to spur you to go out and buy a bottle of absinthe. Having someone else be able to do those extra special little details has very much survived.” Randall said he has noticed more and more people coming in for takeout and that he hopes they can return to dine-in soon. The staff plan to take time off at the beginning of April and then work toward dine-in options when they return. “We’ve already seen a pretty solid increase in foot traffic just having students back,” Randall said. “I hear stories every single day about how we have been effectively catering
dinner parties people are having with their vaccinated friends.” Hemingway’s, located near Towers on Forbes Avenue, has been closed since last spring, but is opening once again on March 31. John Elasky, the owner, said he too is excited to interact with students again and is currently working on building up his wait and bar staff. “It’s been a year,” Elasky said. “We’re going to open at a limited capacity, and go from there. I’m hoping by fall, things will be back to normal. We’re not doing anything new, but I just don’t know what to expect. We’re taking it real slow for the first few weeks for sure.”
Elasky said students are glad the bar is reopening and have been knocking on the door and calling. He added that many people have told him to try doing takeout food and drinks in order to stay open, but he decided not to. “That’s not what Hemingway’s is about,” Elasky said. “You can eat here, you can drink here, but Hemingway’s is about socializing. You meet your friends here and you interact. So that’s why we closed. If you can’t socialize, you’re not gonna come.” Ney said Gene’s Place and other bars depend on Pitt students for business and that he’s thankful for their continued patronage.
With students hopefully returning to the bar on April 4, Ney said he’s very excited to have people back and regain some normalcy. “We’re going to continue to follow whatever guidelines and policies we need to,” Ney said. “I really appreciate and thank all the University of Pittsburgh students who have supported me over this COVID period. I hope they continue to support me as we open up and I hope they support the other bars here in Oakland, too. We have a lot of nice bars and it’s important to support them. There’s no such thing as a bad bar in Oakland, just different types of good ones.”
Gene Ney runs Gene’s Place — a bar located on Louisa Place. Alanna Reid staff photographer
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Culture
Pittsburgh craft breweries pittnews.com
Mellinger’s continues legacy with new owners
Alex Busterna and Charlie Taylor The Pitt News Staff
With hundreds of selections and a location in the heart of South Oakland, Mellinger’s has long been a staple of campus life — and the best beer distributor in Oakland, according to The Pitt News’ readership. Located at the corner of Bates and Semple streets is Mellinger’s Beer Distributor. Known to many as “Mel’s,” the distributor has been proudly serving Oakland for 80 years. The store switched management in February after the current owners, Neil and Neha Shah, bought it from Diana Bellisario, who owned and operated the distributor for just three months shy of 30 years. According to Bellisario, she sold the distributor because she wanted to retire, but the decades-long Oakland resident has no
intentions of leaving behind her customers and employees. “You could imagine how many people I had working for me over almost 30 years. And a lot of them reached out to me, like when they’ve seen [the announcement] on Facebook, and they still reach out every now and then to wish me a happy birthday or Merry Christmas,” Bellisario said. “We were family there.” Neha Shah said she and her husband had been looking to buy a new store and heard Bellisario was considering selling over two years ago. She said although they had planned to buy the business last year, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the exchange. “I like the Oakland area because it’s a student area, young crowd, more positive energy and fun to work with,” Shah said. “Two and a half years ago … I started visit-
ing her, I introduced myself and I kind of built a trust saying that I’m really interested in working with her.” The liveliness of the neighborhood also struck Bellisario as one of the things she’ll miss most about running Mel’s. Still, she won’t have to go far be amongst student life. She grew up in Polish Hill, but she and her husband moved to Oakland after their marriage in 1973. “I'm still a resident of Oakland and I have no plans on leaving. I love the atmosphere, being around all the college students. Everybody knows me, I know them. They keep me young,” Bellisario said. The change in ownership will come with adjustments to the business model. The Shahs have already extended the store hours, and according to Neha Shah, they plan to open more of the building, allowing customers to spend time browsing the selection. Currently, customers give their orders to employees, who bring items to them from the back room. “I want to create a more customerfriendly environment where students can walk in and feel comfortable,” she said. “Everyone likes to see, touch — and [the] beer industry nowadays is like a candy shop. You walk around, you feel so excited about different products.” Neha Shah said they also plan to “clean up” the interior of the store to bring it more in line with the personal shopping experience she hopes to introduce.
“I’m brightening up the place, making everything more like a shop — nicer upscale shop than the way it is right now, which worked for everyone all those years. There’s nothing wrong about it, but it’s nice to have [a] cleaner, customer-friendly environment,” she said. Still, the Shahs plan to keep the Mellinger name, which started with founder Harry Mellinger in the early 1940s. “The name is staying the same. That name is there in the Oakland area for over 80 years now,” Shah said. Even with the future plans for Mellinger’s, Steve Bambury, a senior accounting and business information systems double major, said he enjoys the store that still operates how it originally did. “I like the selection the most at Mel's, it has the best collection of craft beer in South Oakland,” Bambury said. “They also never run out of inventory — you can always count on them having a case of the beer or seltzer you want.” Evan Lewis, a senior communications major, also said he was impressed with the store, because “the selection is nice and the prices aren’t too crazy.” Bellisario said she felt Mel’s became a staple in Oakland in part because she, her family and her employees — including
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Sports
McCrum surges back from Tommy John pittnews.com
Pitt Athletics stands to gain big from Pete alcohol sales Dalton Coppola Staff Writer
As if the lively fans in the Petersen Events Center weren't rowdy enough already, Pitt Athletics announced in 2019 that it would begin to allow alcohol sales at the Petersen Events Center. This news was followed by Pitt Athletics announcing a four-year partnership with an iconic Pittsburgh brewing company in August 2020. From any vantage point near Point State Park, Pittsburghers can look up and see the Iron City Beer sign sitting on the side of Mount Washington. At night, the iconic red letters and white canvas pop under the lights and stand alone on the mountainside, serving as a constant reminder of the City’s connection to Iron City Beer.
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Pittsburgh sports and Iron City Beer have gone hand in hand for what seems like forever. Iron City released Steelers-themed cans for special occasions during the 1970s to the 1990s — from events as big as a conference championship or as small as the team picture, Iron City was sure to honor the Steelers with special edition cans. The brewery has declared itself “the premium light lager that embodies all things black and gold. It’s preferred by champions everywhere.” Christian Spears, Pitt’s deputy athletic director, cited Iron City’s history with Pittsburgh sports as a reason Pitt decided to partner with the company. According to Spears, Pitt’s athletic department had a plethora of Pennsylvania breweries to choose from as the official local brewery of the Panthers.
“There’s a cool history with breweries in Pennsylvania and we had some different options,” Spears, who oversees departments such as revenue generation, marketing and licensing, said. “Iron City really wanted to be that official local beer. They’ve done some really good things with the other professional organizations that set them apart.” The Pittsburgh Brewing Company, which brews IC Light, echoed Spears’ excitement about the partnership and looks forward to furthering its relationship with the City’s teams. “There is nothing more Pittsburgh than cheering on the Pitt Panthers while enjoying an IC Light,” the Pittsburgh Brewing team said. The partnership with IC and the ability to sell alcohol at the Pete were financially
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motivated as well, according to Spears. Based on a small sample size from 2019, Spears anticipates that when the Pete can return to full capacity, Pitt could make anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 in annual revenue off of beer sales. Spears said the revenue from alcohol sales goes toward Student Affairs initiatives to provide students with events that oftentimes exclude alcohol, such as the Late Night Substance-Free Event and the annual Haunted Holland events held in the past. Although much of the student population at Pitt is under the legal drinking age and can’t order an IC Light for themselves, many of the fans in attendance are of
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