Popular Pittsburgh Restaurant Declares Bankruptcy

PITTSBURGH, PA- It's a sad irony that a Pittsburgh restaurant and bar that opened in a former funeral home might soon need one for itself.

The Abbey on Butler Street in Lawrenceville has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The news first was reported in the Pittsburgh Business Times.

The decade-old establishment houses two bars, a coffee shop and a restaurant.

The building that The Abbey on Butler occupies is historic.

According to the restaurant's website, the original portion was constructed as The Wayne Brass Foundry in 1913 and then later renovated into Henninger Funeral Home during the Great Depression.

During a massive renovation, the owners personally exposed the old brick walls and sandblasted the wooden ceiling beams from the brass foundry days in The Parlour Bar. It contains the original wrought iron elevator door panels from Pittsburgh's Jenkin' Arcade that once stood Downtown between Penn and Liberty Avenues at Stanwix Street.

Crowning The Coffeehouse is a reclaimed church rose window from Our Lady Help of Christian Church that was located in Pittsburgh's Larimer neighborhood. Here, owners and staff worked together to hoist it in place and repurpose it as a chandelier and use it as a logo.

The Vesper Room is filled with reclaimed oak paneling and stained-glass windows that the owners saved from the demolished Mary S. Brown Methodist Church that once stood on Beechwood Boulevard. It's aglow with vintage advertising signs, many from Pittsburgh companies.