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<\/a>PITTSBURGH \u2014<\/p>\nKatelyn Bako has always had a love for the food industry. Growing up in Southern California, she always worked in the business and her dream initially was to open up a bakery. But then, that dream changed a bit. <\/p>\n
“How can I do a business that has baked goods but still does food and I don’t have to make someone work overnight? And then, like, diner was kind of my new vision,” said Bako.<\/p>\n
It was when she moved to Pittsburgh that her dream became a reality. <\/p>\n
“My dad and my whole family is from Pittsburgh, so I spent a lot of time traveling here and visiting as a kid, which almost made it feel more special to me. I looked at it through rose-colored glasses, and it always felt like this amazing home away from home, even though I had never lived here. So, when I finally made the choice to move here, it was like I felt like a homecoming in like a very weird way,” Bako said.<\/p>\n
Then, last year, her diner dream became Dad’s Dogs and Burgers in the city’s Bloomfield neighborhood. Bako said she came across this spot for rent, which coincidentally used to be a diner. She wanted to keep the retro bones and feel of the old place for her new home. And she did so for a specific reason. <\/p>\n
“Most people in Pittsburgh grew up, like, with diners and they grew up going to restaurants that felt like this or feel similar to the basement of their grandparents’ house with the wood paneling and the deer on the wall. It’s just, there’s something about it that is familiar to everybody,” said Bako.<\/p>\n
And of course, an old school diner comes with a classic menu.<\/p>\n
“Burgers, hot dog fries, onion rings, milkshakes breakfast sandwiches that’s the menu that’s it.”<\/p>\n
And here is that Pittsburgh diner, one year later. <\/p>\n
“The best year of my life,” she said.<\/p>\n
And the name inspiration?<\/p>\n
“My dad was going to retire. I told him about the restaurant, and I was like, ‘Do you want to not retire?’ And he was like, ‘Do I have a choice?’ And I was like, ‘Not really.’ To, like, get to spend his later part of life, like, at my restaurant working with me, seeing me live my dreams to something that is just like so special and, like, I can’t even put into words how, like, happy that makes me,” Bako said.<\/p>\n
And not only does Bako credit her passion and even her father for helping make her dream a reality, but also another familiar business owner in the same area. <\/p>\n
“When I first moved here, I became really good friends with Sarah, the owner of Brothmonger. And the day that I met her was the day that she closed on her restaurant. I was helping her paint her restaurant the day I found this,” said Bako.<\/p>\n
“If you need help, if you need money, like, we are all in. Let’s go,” said Sarah Coppolo, owner of Brothmonger.<\/p>\n
Brothmonger, right down the road along Penn Avenue, is owned by Coppolo. A former funeral director turned soup queen of Pittsburgh, started selling and making her soups out of her apartment. Years later, it’s become a fan favorite. <\/p>\n
“I started Brothmonger because, like, I have always loved soup a lot, and I’ve always been good at cooking it. People kept kind of being like, where do I find good soup in Pittsburgh? And the answers were all pretty disappointing to me,” said Coppolo. <\/p>\n
And Coppolo says Brothmonger almost was not what it is now.<\/p>\n
“I was always very adamant about not wanting to own my own business because of like the chance of failure,” Coppolo said.<\/p>\n
And now, almost two years later, Coppolo credits her massive success not only to those delicious recipes, but to her customers as well. <\/p>\n
“I kind of just treat my customers and my following on social media as if they are my best friends. And they respond to that really well, and they treat me like I’m their friend. I tell everyone I love them and I do love them. They’ve, like, created my life for me,” said Coppolo. <\/p>\n
And she gets to live this life with her close friend, Bako. <\/p>\n
“She’s killing it, I’m killing it, and we’re killing it together. Me and one of my best friends own a restaurant within a block of each other and we help each other out all the time,” said Coppolo. <\/p>\n
“We all motivate each other. We all help each other, and especially in the restaurant industry, which was previously a boys club. To have other female restaurant owners in your circle is everything,” said Bako.<\/p>\n
“I think that every boys club should be destroyed,” Coppolo said.<\/p>\n
Both Bako and Coppolo are now offering this piece of advice to the next generation of female entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n
“If you’re thinking about opening a restaurant or starting your business or doing something scary, you should do it. And don’t, like, hesitate to reach out to other people that inspire you,” said Bako.<\/p>\n
“If you think that you can do it, you can do it,” Coppolo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One block apart, two women are reshaping Pittsburgh’s restaurant scene PITTSBURGH \u2014 Katelyn Bako has always had a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7715,118284,118277,11118,60,16951,118276,37491,9356,79098,118281,11931,42079,118278,105,40155,118283,4808,73,75,74,95411,976,118280,118279,12766,112497,2184,118282,118285,78],"class_list":["post-283606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-bloomfield","tag-breakfast-sandwiches","tag-brothmonger","tag-burgers","tag-business","tag-dad","tag-dads-dogs-and-burgers","tag-diner","tag-dogs","tag-dream","tag-female-entrepreneurs","tag-good","tag-hot-dogs","tag-katelyn-bako","tag-life","tag-milkshakes","tag-onion-rings","tag-penn-avenue","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-restaurant","tag-restaurant","tag-restaurant-scene","tag-sarah-coppolo","tag-soup","tag-southern-california","tag-woman","tag-women-owners","tag-women-restaurateurs","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}