D's: A Chicago Dog in Pittsburgh

I like to think that even if I hadn't grown up in Chicago, I would have come to like Chicago-style hot dogs anyway. A Chicago dog is an all-beef wiener on a poppy seed bun, with a choice of toppings from chopped onion, tomato, mustard, relish, pickle slice, and sport peppers, topped with celery salt. I have always liked a variety of toppings on my sandwiches, so the maximal topping approach of the Chicago dog was likely to appeal to me anyway. And as it happens, I did grow up in Chicago, so I naturally took to them.

D's is a small bar in the Regent Square neighborhood of Pittsburgh that advertises itself as a place for "Six Pax and Dogz", but I didn't even realize until I went that the hot dogs they served were Chicago style. It was actually the beer aspect that first drew my eye D's, not the dogs. Even had I known, the prospect of a Chicago dog would have been a secondary attraction. After all, a Chicago dog is not unattainable in Pittsburgh. When going for lunch downtown, I sometimes venture to Yovi's, which also serves them. That's enough to satisfy my occasional craving. In fact, as often as not, I get an Italian beef there instead.

No, it was the beer that first drew my eye and motivated me to finally visit D's a couple of weekends ago, for getting good beer in Pittsburgh can be nearly as much of a challenge as getting a Chicago dog. There are several good establishments that sell quality beers, but I'm always happy to discover more.

Except for root beer, D's does not have working taps. Instead, you just go to pick a beer out of their cooler when you step in. I found the selection somewhat eclectic. There are a lot of choices, but I didn't get a sense of organization; it felt more like what I was seeing was whatever they felt like putting in the cooler that morning. On any given day I'm not sure if I'd have been able to find a particular beer, but there are plenty of selections to choose from. Being a fan of pale ales, I chose a Blue Heron, good but not my favorite. Janna went for the 1919 root beer, which she declared to be very good.

My standard hot dog order is with everything but relish (and I then eat the pickle spear on the side). Chicago dogs seem to be a very standardized form of food. As long as they're served competently, I can't really tell one from another, and that was true of D's as well. On the other hand Janna, who has her own ideas of what a hot dog should be, and dissatisfied with most of the hot dogs she'd found in Pittsburgh, liked hers well enough to want to return, high praise indeed. Along with the dogs we split an order of onion rings, fine but also pretty standard.

There's not much to say about the décor. There are two rooms, but I only saw one. There the seating options were either two-person high circular tables or just eating at the bar. The bar lamp fixtures looked like beer kegs, with actual beer company logos on them. One was from another favorite local Pittsburgh establishment, the Church Brew Works.

After eating, we went to visit the so-called Beer Cave, where a wider selection of brews is available. These can be mixed and matched in six packs to go. Since it's hard to get beers in Pittsburgh by anything but the case, this is an attractive option, but expensive. Average prices looked to be about $3 a bottle, making for very expensive six packs. In this state, there's no way to win!

D's provides exactly what they advertise--beer and hot dogs. If that combination appeals to you, it's a great place to get good quality of both. It's a place I'm sure we will return to many times.