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Inside Switch and Signal Skatepark<\/a>, far from the trendy crowd in up-and-already-came Lawrenceville, is Constellation<\/a>\u2019s new sister cafe, aptly named Satellite<\/a>. Opened this past July, Satellite almost didn\u2019t happen. Switch and Signal\u2019s owner, Kerry Weber, was a long-time regular at Pittsburgh cafe, Constellation, but when he first approached owner Amy Weiland about setting up and running the cafe he wanted in his Swissvale skatepark, she said no. Weiland was coming off a serious biking accident and also wasn\u2019t interested in doing the same thing twice. But when she finally said yes, she did anything but repeat Constellation: though both cafes are owned and run by Weiland and use coffee from Ceremony Coffee Roasters<\/a>, they have a very different feel.<\/span><\/p>\n Satellite\u2019s design, like the skatepark it inhabits, incorporates many recycled elements from the bowling alley that originally occupied the building. The bartop used to be a bowling lane, the crown molding a gutter. The tables and benches in the cafe\u2019s seating area are built from the pinboy benches that were behind the pin decks, back before the pin-resetting process became automated. Those pinboys\u2019 nicknames\u2014Red, Box, Bone\u2014are graffitied on the back wall of the skatepark. Weber and his designer, Michael Whartnaby, worked with Construction Junction<\/a>\u2014a construction reuse nonprofit and longstanding fixture in Pittsburgh\u2014to reuse as many building materials as possible in the cafe and for Switch and Signal\u2019s ramps. Not all repurposed design elements came from the bowling alley, though: Satellite\u2019s walls have a unique tile border running around the top made from recycled skateboard tiles from Art of Board<\/a>, a Hanover, PA company.<\/span><\/p>\n Weiland said she sees Satellite as \u201cConstellation\u2019s punk rock little sister.\u201d Where Constellation\u2019s design is elegantly understated, Satellite\u2019s is more playful, a bit more rough-and-ready. Where Constellation\u2019s menu is a little more \u201cprecious,\u201d as Weiland admits, Satellite\u2019s is simpler and more focused on service. This pared-down menu is designed to satisfy coffee enthusiasts while allowing baristas to be able to really engage with the community they\u2019re in. Swissvale is a lower-income, less homogenous part of Pittsburgh. Locating Switch and Signal there was intentional on Weber\u2019s part, who wanted to open his skatepark somewhere where it could really be a positive influence in the community, especially for \u00a0youth. He also wanted the cafe to be entirely plant-based, a challenge that intrigued Weiland and played a role in her eventual decision to accept Weber\u2019s proposal.<\/span><\/p>\n Other than espresso shots, cappuccinos, and lattes\u2014made on a two-group La Marzocco Linea<\/a>\u2014Satellite also serves a seasonal beverage, like the coconut iced mocha with coconut whipped cream on the menu this summer. The default milk option is Sunrich Naturals<\/a> soy milk, but they also serve\u00a0Califia Farms<\/a> almond milk, Oatly<\/a> oat milk, or, on occasion, lesser-known alternatives like\u00a0Ripple<\/a> pea milk. Getting to experiment is part of the fun for Weiland. Cappuccinos and espressos are served in beautiful red notNeutral VERO<\/a> glassware. For filter, Satellite only offers batch brew coffee, made on a FETCO<\/a> using a BUNN<\/a> grinder. Not offering pour-over \u201copens up a focus on service,\u201d said Weiland, in keeping with Satellite\u2019s and Switch and Signal\u2019s goal of engaging with the community. That\u2019s also why Satellite only offers Rishi<\/a> bagged tea and not the loose leaf Song Tea<\/a> on Constellation\u2019s menu.<\/span><\/p>\n Amy Weiland<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Satellite has the addition of a food menu, and it\u2019s all-plant-based, too. Baked goods come from Gluuteny<\/a>, a local gluten- and dairy-free bakery. Onion Maiden<\/a>, a Pittsburgh vegan pop-up restaurant that\u2019s finally found its brick-and-mortar home in Allentown, provides the bagels and cashew cream cheese, muffins, and paninis on Satellite\u2019s menu. In keeping with the environmental motivation behind the plant-based menu and the recycled building materials, Satellite is focused on sustainability, and everything except the straws at the cafe is compostable.<\/span><\/p>\n Satellite isn\u2019t a soothing-office-away-from-home kind of space. It wasn\u2019t designed to be. It was meant to be the kind of space where the countercultural creativity that can be found in both the specialty coffee and the skateboarding worlds could flourish. It\u2019s a place to try new things, to meet new people, to take off the headphones, to engage. Union Switch and Signal, the railway signaling equipment manufacturer from which the skatepark takes its name, used to be the largest employer in Swissvale. Switch and Signal Skatepark and Satellite hope to play an important and positive role in this community, too, one coffee-drinking, vegan-bagel-eating, skateboarder at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n Rachel Grozanick is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Oregon. Grozanick has contributed previously to\u00a0Bitch Magazine<\/a>,\u00a090.5 WESA<\/a>\u00a0in Pittsburgh, and\u00a090.7 KBOO<\/a>\u00a0in Portland. Read more\u00a0Rachel Grozanick on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Skate & Enjoy: Satellite Is Pittsburgh’s Plant-Based Skatepark Cafe<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Inside Switch and Signal Skatepark, far from the trendy crowd in up-and-already-came Lawrenceville, is Constellation\u2019s new sister cafe, aptly named Satellite. Opened this past July, Satellite almost didn\u2019t happen. Switch…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26],"tags":[63,27,65,33,61,32,59,31,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"satellite](\"https:\/\/sprudge.com\/file\/2018\/09\/Satellite_Exterior_03-1170x780.jpg\")
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<\/span><\/p>\nSatellite Cafe is located inside the Switch and Signal Skatepark at\u00a07518 Dickson St, Swissvale<\/a>. Follow them on Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/div>\n