The First Primanti Bros. Restaurant wasn’t a restaurant at all. It was a cart. That’s how we started. Awesome, right?
-1933-ish-
Around 1933 a regular guy named Joe Primanti saw the dock crews and truck drivers who worked shifts overnight in the produce warehouses of Pittsburgh’s Strip District neighborhood were hungry. And he thought they could use a good meal.
-1933-
The problem – those guys worked at night. So – Joe manned up and started serving sandwiches by moonlight from his now-historic cart. And it worked. Pretty quickly, Joe Primanti was joined by his brothers (obviously – check out the name of the place) and the restaurant was born – open from 11PM to 11AM every night.
-Sometime later-
One day a guy from a produce warehouse stopped by with a load of potatoes. Joe fried up a few and put ‘em on a sandwich and realized he was on to something. A handful of slaw on top – rather than the side – and Joe knew he had it. No sides, no forks and no need for a plate meant Joe’s customers could eat with one hand and keep working with the other – and it meant less mess for Joe and his bros. Perfect.
-Today-
As we’ve grown, we’ve stayed committed to that sandwich and Joe’s original recipes – using the freshest ingredients and preparing things by hand. We haven’t lost any of his attitude, either.