Remedy Restaurant and Lounge (2nd Floor)

5121 Butler St., Pittsburgh, PA 15201
Grade: B-


I'll continue my coverage of Pittsburgh spots (based on leftover photos that I've never utilized) with Remedy's second-floor unisex restroom. This falls into the category of crappy bathrooms that are supposed to be that way, man. The facilities themselves are sort of not the point; to be honest, the place is so dark and covered with so much graffiti that's it hard to tell how clean it really is on any given night. There's a toilet, urinal, sink, and roll of paper towels (that almost always falls off of its poorly-designed wall-mounted holder when utilized). The door locks, and though there is usually a wait the line tends not to be too long. I have, on occasion, seen the customary pump bottle of soap replaced with a squeeze condiment bottle. People get drunk here, dance to occasionally crappy (and occasionally brilliant) music, and use this bathroom. It does its job.

The huge graffiti skull that covers the restroom's only window is a signifier for the obvious--this place invites wall tags. To complain about the copious graffiti would, perhaps, be missing the point. No one is going to be scrubbing tags off of these walls unless it is something offensive to the establishment's relatively liberal (do I generalize?) clientele. My problem with this is that they don't seem to carry the concept quite far enough. If you are going welcome it, why not promote even more creative and colorful wall art? The vast majority of the tags are in black or silver ink, and with the bathroom's dark green walls, the overall feeling is just sort of drab and unimpressive when it could be fun. I'd like to see more stuff along the lines of that skull, but that's just me. Right now, it sits on the border of actually crappy and cool crappy, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt by assuming the owners at least mean for it to be cool.

Remedy has a third floor restroom which is truly crazy, but I somehow lost all of the pics I had taken during my last visit. Next time I'm in PGH, I'll get those photos and post an update.