Lytle Café on the market after 53 years in business below the tracks | The Homepage

From left: Denise Provident, oldest daughter of the Perris family; Lytle Café owner Denise Perris; middle daughter and café manager Camille Clifford on April 17. Ms. Perris’ youngest daughter, Michelle Auberzinsky, was out of town. Photo by Cassandra Harris

By Cassandra Harris

John Perris wanted something more than his job at Calig's Steel Drum Company in 1973, so he and his wife, Denise Perris, borrowed money from her aunt Julie and bought the Lytle Café below the tracks in Hazelwood.

“He said, ’We’ll only be here 10 years,’” Denise Provident, the Perris’ oldest daughter, recalled. She was 10 years old at the time.

The “café” is a bar with a two-story apartment above it. It’s been 53 years, and Ms. Perris still lives upstairs from the bar; the Perrises raised their three daughters there. John Perris continued working at Calig's for many years while running the bar; he died in 2008.

Lytle Café at 5040 Lytle St. is now for sale, listed for $325,000. The sale comes with a liquor license, entertainment license, Sunday sales permit and all equipment. The two-level apartment upstairs has three bedrooms and one bathroom.

Ms. Perris said once the building is sold, she might take the family on a trip to Greece, where her father-in-law lived.

The bar is only open two days a week these days. Ms. Perris cooks with her second daughter, manager Camille Clifford, on Wednesdays and some Fridays from noon to 6 p.m.

“I’m 84. I can’t do it,” Ms. Perris said. “We’re too tired.”

But for many years, this joint was jumping. Ms. Perris liked to decorate it for a week every summer. She would choose a theme like circus or Mexican week.

“I wasn’t into the guys and drinking and sports n’at so I would create these days,” Ms. Perris said.

She said during Hawaiian week one year, someone counted 98 people in the bar.

“I don’t know how they fit in there. On Italian week, I made them waitresses,” she said, referring to her daughters. “I never cooked so many meatballs!”

She spoke from a chair on the back deck of Lytle Café on April 17. People were trickling in and out, greeting her with hugs and kisses, and hoping that when they got inside, there was hot sausage and a beer still available for lunch.

One patron who stopped by was Ms. Perris’ brother-in-law, Bob Perris. He remembered a wager John Perris made with a customer years before.

It happened after a commercial about baldness came on the TV in the bar. Mr. Perris told a customer, “There ain’t nothing wrong with baldness.” So the customer bet Mr. Perris $100 he wouldn’t shave his head.

Mr. Perris remembered his brother accepting the bet and leaving to go upstairs through a cubby hole beneath the bar. When he came back down, he was “as bald as a cue ball,” without his long, curly black hair. The customer told him he was out of his mind.

Ms. Provident remembered her dad as a jokester, but said her mom was a bigger jokester than her dad.

One time, someone bet Ms. Perris that she couldn’t get served in a men-only bar called The Irish Club on Second Avenue.

“This guy said to me, ’There ain’t no way. We don’t want women. You ain’t getting in,’” Ms. Perris remembered. “I said, ’I’ll bet you $50 I get in there and get served.’ He says, ’You’re on.’”

The Lytle Café is a family-owned restaurant and bar that has operated below the tracks for 53 years. Owner Denise Perris painted the facade many times over the years, as in this photo from 1976. Photo courtesy of Denise Provident

At that point, everyone in the bar was laughing. So, she called up a local priest to borrow his clothes. Once she purchased a fake beard and did her makeup, she went into The Irish Club with five friends.

Once inside, the bouncer said, “Good evening, father.”

To order a drink, she didn’t speak because she did not want her voice to give her away. Instead, she wrote her drink requests on a piece of paper. One guy at the bar said to her, “I know you’re not a priest,” but still thought she was a guy, Ms. Perris said.

Once she was ready to leave, she said she ripped off her hat at the door and exclaimed, “You tell Mikey that De De Perris got served in a man’s bar!

“They all gave me a standing ovation,” she said.

The intersection of bars and churches was a bit of a theme for the family.

“I grew up one foot in the church, one foot in a bar,” said Eddy Provident, the Perris’ grandson, who stopped by the porch. “You know, like, it was a very wild juxtaposition.”

The Perrises sent their daughters to St. Stephen’s Parish school, now repurposed as the Spartan Community Center of Hazelwood. Ms. Perris said it bugged her that other parents didn’t want their kids around hers.

“A lot of them parents didn’t want them to associate as much because we owned a bar,” she said. “Little did they know all my daughters got married in church.”

Despite that, Mr. Provident said that as a kid in the neighborhood, everyone met at Lytle Café to ride bikes. His friends, his brother’s friends, Ms. Perris’ grandkids and others formed a group of 25 to 30 people. They would all meet there and then ride bikes on the Eliza Furnace trail. Ms. Perris rode her bike with them, too.

The bar was a gathering place for somber occasions as well. Just outside of the bar is a veterans’ memorial, where the Perrises held a service every year on Memorial Day.

In spite of the family’s good memories at the bar, the Perris family is ready to pass the torch to someone new.

“While nearby communities like Greenfield, Squirrel Hill and Swisshelm Park are saturated with dining options, Hazelwood has next to none, putting this location in a prime position to thrive,” real estate agent Lori Kashellack said.

To learn more, contact Ms. Kashellack at 412-969-3584 or LoriKashellack@TRPSold.com.

Cassandra Harris is a freelance journalist, graduating senior at Point Park University and former Pittsburgh Media Partnership summer intern at The Homepage.

Correction: The print version of this story stated that John Perris was a handyman and that his mother, not his father, was from Greece. It also erroneously stated that the bar is sometimes open on Thursdays.