In PA it is typically restaurants without license that encourage BYOB (and despite PA's usually restrictive laws they are allowed to advertise it, probably because nobody ever thought to make a law against that). I believe they can allow it with a license as well though. Corkage if any is up to the establishment. Some will be well set with glassware, etc. if they encourage this.

As far as beyond wine/beer, there was at least one BYOB place in this area (Pittsburgh) that made their own mixers and encouraged you to bring vodka/gin/etc to mix in them. The place has since closed but that always seemed like a cool idea to me.

Another quirk: unlicensed places can give away at least wine for free, at least with a meal (another thing they probably never thought to outlaw). The same place as above used to sometimes have free sangria. I've heard of places having free wine with dinner. Nothing beyond those though, not sure if beer or spirits are allowed or not.

Waffles Inc. is, IMO, a better breakfast joint. Now that they have another location in the South Side I don't have to couch it by saying it's way out in New Brighton. :-)

Still not sure it'll meet your coffee standards of course but should be better than some. ;-)

Oh, I don't think I have 10 yet. I haven't been chasing them down. The ones I know best are Benkovitz and Oyster House. The latter I can walk to from the office so I can get it for lunch occasionally. I still go back and forth on which is best of those two. Each time I finally get another Benkovitz sandwich I do think it's pretty good as well. These you can get all year. I keep hearing about Nied's Hotel in Lawrenceville, though, so sometime I may have to try that.

Now Penn Ave Fish is excellent, but this is not the same thing. They make some great sandwiches. But the deal for trying different ones and especially during lent is FRIED fish. Penn Ave doesn't do a fried sandwich. One I had during lent this year was from Winghart's which is otherwise a burger place. Very good sandwich. But if you're going to taste test during lent it is the church fish fries that are the classic thing to hit up. Seems like last lent or maybe the previous year someone was doing a good roundup of church fish fries in an article or series of articles, but I can't remember which publication it was.

Looks like some good suggestions so far. I would go with one of those instead of looking for diner food, which is sadly somewhat lacking in the Cranberry area. (There is a diner that I go to occasionally, but it's only so-so, especially at dinner, and it has none of that classic diner feel anyway as it's in a newer strip mall.)

I am familiar with BRGR and Mad Mex, both of which I recommend depending upon your preferences. Echo and Tamari should also be good if you wish to go that route, but I haven't been to either. Echo has two spaces with different menus so it doesn't have to be crazy upscale necessarily.

I believe Frederick is your better bet for food on the way back. I'm not familiar with too many restaurants there but I have eaten at one called The Orchard which I remember being good especially as a couple with one vegetarian, one not. ;-) My understanding though is that there are a number of good restaurants in Frederick these days.

You could do 10 sandwiches just for fish, especially at Lent but even not at lent there are probably 10 that someone has said is the best. Each one is a little different.

But certainly you'd have better choices focusing on sandwiches than pizza.

Probably Dinette.

When you have extra time, drive way out north to Burgh'ers in Harmony. I've been to BRGR and Winghart's and like them, and Burgatory once and like that (but I've only been once so don't remember the taste as well as the others). Burgh'ers is my favorite though. No crazy shakes there (I think they do still have plain shakes) but grass fed local beef and now a good bar to back up the good food.

Try them all indeed!

It's very good, have had a few lunches, but sad I never get over there for breakfast. I just don't get into town early enough, always need to head right to office.

Elements has closed after a 2-year run downtown. I'm guessing it didn't help that the original chef left fairly early on, plus not really in a location that foot traffic would notice as much outside office hours. I'm sure the construction earlier on (of the subway extension) didn't help either.

Great spot for someone, but what would work in there?

These are the feeders we have too. 4:1 sugar and we've been boiling it (just to a boil only, not sure why or where we read about it), make up a quart or two at a time and keep in the fridge. No coloring. If you get a feeder with no ant moat there are separate ant moats you can buy that have an integrated hanging system. You hang the moat from the hook and then the feeder from the moat.

Whatever feeder you get should have red on the feeding part, and not yellow. Yellow will attract bees! Only red seems to truly attract the hummingbirds from what I've read and what I've seen, the yellow is not necessary. Red flowers are good too. They will go to other flower colors but I've watched them seek out the red ones.

Once they know the feeder is there you can be outside and they will still come to a feeder just a few feet away from you, as long as you're mostly quiet at least. (Some other birds will also do this at a regular seed feeder, like chickadees, etc.) Also don't be afraid to hang a hummingbird feeder right in front of your window. They will not be put off by the proximity to the house, and you can get a good closeup view without really disturbing them most of the time.

Great to hear you found some good things. Hank's is definitely a great find. I've never partaken of the Mexican food, always surprised at how popular that is in fact, although out in Beaver County there aren't as many places to get even quasi-Mexican stuff. The funny thing is they've been serving that for decades. But certainly frozen custard is an awesome way to cool off the burn of Mexican so I guess in that way it goes together. The custard is great, great stuff.

Here's the more current web site: http://go2hanks.com/

FWIW, we had gotten some Grand Marnier recently, and almost always have Cointreau, and while we had both we made two margaritas the same way, one with each, so we could taste test. We both thought the Cointreau one was better.

Cointreau was on sale for $28.99 recently here in PA, that may be it. I made sure to get a bottle, was hunting around on one of the last few days of the sale because so many of the stores were sold out!

I can't readily get the Brizzard triple sec, and the PA price is $25 anyway at special order. LOL Useless, essentially. Have to try to gauge where I can stop on my trip coming up, but my trips up north don't seem to help much. NY (on I-84), CT, MA, just doesn't seem to add much in the way of better pricing or variety, although I did pick up Old Monk rum once in a NY shop; that was good, and cheap at about 13 bucks.

Mad Mex is fun, sorta quasi-Mexican-inspired, works great with a kid typically. It's a chain but a local one, and that's the original location. Be aware that walk is uphill somewhat significantly if I remember right. ;-) http://madmex.com/

Spice Island Tea House is a sort of hole in the wall ethnic place: http://www.spiceislandteahouse.com/Homepage.html I've been there just once but liked the food. Could probably still walk here, it's also on Atwood.

You'd probably want to drive to The Porch. Might be worth it though if you want a little bit nicer dinner. I haven't been. http://www.ThePorchAtSchenley.com/

Of course if you're going to drive you could choose some other places too. You could still go to the Church Brew Works if that appealed before, it's not really that far. http://churchbrew.com/

Not too many places are closed Mondays in the downtown vicinity that I can think of. Although someone mentioned Dinette above I think; they are closed Mondays so scratch that idea.

You might be surprised. Although I did not witness the childrens' activities, this museum certainly kept a roughly 2.8-year-old ;-) occupied for about 4 hours including the lunch, and he might have gone longer if given the opportunity (we decided upon a set pickup time in the afternoon). It was a weekday so we went to work, only the kid and mother went to the museum, and we met there for lunch. So I can personally attest to the lunch but not the rest of the place. But our visitors were most impressed and would highly recommend it. Tip: I know your kid is a year older, but apparently one regret was that they didn't have a change of clothes. I guess one of the rooms has a water play activity that can cause at least some kids to get overly wet. ;-)

This link goes to the cafe page http://www.pittsburghkids.org/Templat... from which you can get the full regular menu and the daily specials for 2 weeks looks like. (Those won't be the right ones until you get closer to your trip, but it will give you an idea of some of the things they do.) They do actually serve grilled cheese, burgers and hotdogs, but they have a good number of other things too. And reasonable pricing. All of us adults commented on that. The kid, though, ate a grilled cheese. Ah well. ;-) Anyway, not amazing stuff by any measure, just well above average for this type of facility. From that web page you can also get through to the rest of the museum info which will give you an idea of the activities that are available there.

If you still find you want to leave the museum at lunch I suppose you could hit up something like Max's Allegheny Tavern, which is German food. Newer place Nicky's Thai Kitchen might work as well as long as your lunch day is not Sunday (okay, you say Friday in original post, so that should work). These are near the museum and not too far off your route home.

I would go to the Church Brew Works (suggested above) for that dinner. It's fairly kid friendly I would think and is an unusual setting, maybe not totally unique but certainly isn't one you find every day.

Having just visited, I would actually have lunch at the cafe in the museum. Although, if the goal is to have the kids out of there at lunch and know that they won't be able to go back for more, I can understand. The food is decent for lunch, though, and the pricing is reasonable. Other than that I've been trying to think of something worthwhile that would take you north of the city on your way home, but I'm not really certain of anything to suggest.

Really funny. Someone goofed, like mentioned, a copy/paste error or such? I see soybean oil in there but that wouldn't add protein because it's just the oil. Would be a trivial amount of veg fat I suppose, but anything less than half a gram is "zero".

Hm, sounds like things may have gone downhill. It's been a long time since I've been, probably over a year, maybe even two. It was generally pretty solid service at our local shop. Nothing drove us away really that I remember, just better options and other choices when we go out. For example, there's now a local place specializing in burgers that's better and just as close.

Quite possible they are doing the stealth price hike thing with reducing the size of food. It is after all what is most commonplace in packaged foods at the supermarket.

What's funny for me is both your story (esp the reluctant buddy) and that I probably would have had to get out my phone and look up "trots" if it had been me in that scenario. ;-) (I had a good suspicion given the context, but I've never heard that particular one before.)

Dunno about you guys, but for me the increasing problem with heavy cream and now half and half too is that it's hard to find without carrageenan and possibly gums in it. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods at least both carry this. I can still find organic half and half (or sometimes another non-organic brand) without it at other stores, but WF and TJ have heavy cream without it anymore that I've been able to find here. If the cream has carrageenan, it defeats one of the reasons that I use to justify making homemade ice cream. :-)

Heh, how about an empty fortune cookie? That happened, twice in a row! Mine had a fortune but my companion's did not. We were laughing about it and the waitress did bring another one, which was also empty. Then the next time I think she peeked through the packages to make sure there was obviously a slip of paper in there. ;-)

If I could get Cointreau at my Costco I think that would be on my list too!

When I know it's a small indie place and I don't feel like the prices are overly high, I will try to pay cash especially on small transactions. (Small = around $20 or less, and of course this is assuming I have enough cash with me.) It really is a large volume of smaller amounts that kills you with typical card processing. Not everyone is aware of that, and even those who are won't all feel compelled to do it, but it's just a little thing I like to pay attention to.

Interesting. I've wondered about a change for our business too (I'm not directly in charge of that, but I've been here a long time and it's a small biz, pretty much all account-based but some payments end up by credit card). I figure very few cards qualify for the lowest rate these days.

It isn't really surprising to see a hipness correlation with Square. ;-) It's just because it's based on smartphones and targeted somewhat towards a small business that could even be very low volume. The people running those are in tune to these types of technologies and not so much in traditional POS and such. Indeed traditional card acceptance might be prohibitively expensive when the transactions are so small. Square's rate is as I mentioned completely flat. The latest thing just this week is they now give away an app called "Register" for POS on iPad. Basically, you can have POS for free if you just buy an iPad, seems like, and 2.75% card acceptance including Amex. Not a bad trick. Disruptive, other servicing companies will hate it a lot I suspect.

Pretty funny! I kinda wish that worked at my place with ice cream and the ice cream maker. But it doesn't. I still make it sometimes, and I still buy it sometimes! Sometimes in this particular case = fairly often = too often. ;-)

I bought a Cuisinart last year at Costco, and it only cost 30 bucks. May have been towards end of summer at reduced price, not sure. I figured for that much I could take a chance on it. I think it works adequately. You get the bowl good and frozen, and it takes up a fair amount of space in the freezer. I always make sure mine is in back not in front, even though that means when I'm ready to use I have to move stuff. The book says to let it run for 25-30 min, but it would be nearly overflowing at 30 min even with just vanilla, more if you put anything else into it. If you cook any of the ingredients obviously you need to cool them. If that is the main liquid, that's going to need to cool to fridge temp to have any good results. (I've never cooked the main cream/milk mixture, just keep it Philly style.) It doesn't get super firm, but it gets firm enough, and it firms up more in the freezer. Make sure you have containers to transfer it into, and quickly. And of course if you want to make another batch you either need to wait around 24 hours or so (perhaps more, you have to wash the thing, then make sure it's REALLY dry, before putting it back in freezer, and you want it in there 24 hours methinks. Or you can get additional freezer bowls, which take up even more space in the freezer. Tip: Hefty makes a jumbo zip-top plastic bag which is ideal for putting the bowl into for storing in the freezer.

Mine is model CIM-22RPC. (I know the R is the color, red.) I can't really tell, it looks different than the ICE-21 for sure. I did a search and it appears this model looks like the ICE-20, so maybe they did a new run of the old style for Costco (hence the CIM model prefix)? So maybe that's why mine seems a little less than ideal, because it is old style and not like the newer ICE-21. Interesting. Still, I find this one adequate for paying only 30 bucks on a whim for it.

Heh, after so many years, growing up with laminate countertops and still haven't had anything different even in my current house (and quite possibly still won't even if I get to redo the kitchen in this house, which I might), I doubt I could ever put a pot down on a counter. It's just so ingrained not to. So even at a relative's house with granite, I wouldn't do that. I generally have no reason to anyway and don't get it as a big selling point.

It's an interesting idea for sure. I don't have a problem with it in the form of a cash discount, with the full credit prices being the posted prices. Seeing two separate prices, cash price and credit price like at some gas stations (rarer now but still happens a few places) actually annoys me more for some reason. Going into a restaurant or coffee shop or whatever where they post a price but then say okay, 5% cash discount or 10% (the amount from the OP actually looks like it would be more like a 10% discount, which is kinda crazy, makes me think the credit prices are thus inflated too much), I think that would be fine. For best effect, post prominently on all menus and/or at the register (depending upon type of establishment).

Programming...I wouldn't have thought that tricky, although it's true in at least some if not most/all states that sales tax is on the discounted amount. That would make it a little more difficult for sure.

As long as the posted prices are not way inflated, it seems like this would coax a little more cash business without a big downside. Well, cash handling, I guess that could be viewed as a downside, easier to steal, etc. The smaller the average sale, the bigger the benefit. Because of the swipe fee the overall credit fees in a place with a small average could easily get up to 5% overall, maybe more, with typical options.

I did just look at Costco's deal with Elavon. Swipe fee for normal is 20 cents, but they have a new plan for small transaction customers (under $15 average) that takes only 12 cents per, plus "1.37%" I put that in quotes because we know that's for a non-reward card, and how many people are using cards for small stuff that's not a reward card? The rate for those is still higher. Square is an option though. As long as the card is swiped (not keyed) it's 2.75% flat, for any card including Amex. No additional swipe fee. It integrates with printers and such if you use it with an iPad. (Square for those unfamiliar is an unconventional credit card acceptance service designed as a tiny reader you plug into a smart phone or iPod Touch or iPad, with an app. The reader and app are free. Good for little indie sole proprietors and such, or perhaps for a restaurant running on iPad-based POS, which is entirely possible these days.)

Microwave + 15 years old = shop for a new one in my mind. There have been a few feature advances in that time that you might like anyway. The fee for service call would be a significant ways towards the cost a new machine, and even if you carried it in somewhere I think you'd be up against at least 50 bucks just to diagnose. If you can find for sure there's a fuse and for sure where to replace it, maybe, but heck after 15 years it seems just as likely that something failed. I've seen them fail sooner.