Pre-Game Picklesburgh with Seth Rogen’s “An American Pickle”
The Big Boy train has rolled on through, a bridge is about to be demolished, and more bridges are scheduled to be closed. No worries. Those bridges aren’t going to be closed for renovations, but for a more delicious reason. That’s right, Picklesburgh is back. The four-time USA Today Best Specialty Food Festival returns to downtown Pittsburgh from Thursday, July 16 through Sunday, July 19.
What is it about Pittsburgh and pickles? While Heinz may be most famous for its ketchup, it was actually pickles the company bottled first. During the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Henry J. Heinz had a commercial food exhibit. He wanted to sell directly to grocers instead of having to share his cut of the profit with a middleman. His booth wasn’t getting a lot of traction because it was on the second floor of the exhibition hall. Heinz’s incredible idea to get more foot traffic? Hand out gold-covered luggage tags with the promise of a prize. All of a sudden people were climbing the 100 stairs to his booth. The prize was a pickle pin, and the rest is history.
Photograph by Hopper Stone
To get in the briny spirit ahead of Picklesburgh, check out An American Pickle. The film was released in 2020 and flew a little under the radar. Starring Seth Rogen and Sarah Snook, An American Pickle follows Herschel and Sarah, two immigrants from Eastern Europe in 1919. Herschel gets a job at a pickle factory to earn enough money to purchase two graves at a Jewish cemetery for himself and his wife. His plan is sidelined when Herschel falls into a vat of pickles, where he’s brined for 100 years before waking up in 2019 Brooklyn.
While the film may take place in New York City, An American Pickle came to the pickle capital to shoot the movie. The entirety of An American Pickle was shot between Pittsburgh and Lower Burrell. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the movie was quite busy around the city. Here are some of the locations used to make Pittsburgh look like Brooklyn:
Courtesy of HBO Max
Allegheny Cemetery
Arnold’s Tea
August Wilson Center
Bakery Living Apartments
The Benedum Center
Butler Street
East End Food Co-op
Hartwood Acres
Homewood Cemetery
Liberty Avenue
Max’s Allegheny Tavern
Mellon Square
Merchant Oyster Company
North Main Street in Sharpsburg
North Shore Kindred Hospital
Northside Institutional Church
Siempre Algo
The Vandal
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