After nearly two decades serving downtown power lunches and pre-show dinners, McCormick & Schmick's at Piatt Place on Fifth Avenue has shut its doors, the restaurant confirmed Tuesday. Regulars expecting their usual seafood-and-steak standby instead found the dining room dark this week, as parent company Landry's moves employees to other nearby concepts in its portfolio.
In a statement to WTAE, Shah Ghani, chief operating officer for Landry's, said the Fifth Avenue location "has made the difficult decision to close its doors" and thanked "our loyal guests and dedicated team members." Ghani added that the company is "working to transition team members to nearby sister locations," although no specific reason was given for the shutdown.
Piatt Place, the mixed-use building created from the former Lazarus department store, has hosted McCormick & Schmick's in the heart of the Golden Triangle since the late 2000s. Piatt Companies lists the address as 301 Fifth Avenue and counts the restaurant among its long-running tenants.
By midweek, the digital breadcrumbs were catching up to reality. Online reservation and listing platforms had begun flagging the downtown Pittsburgh restaurant as closed or "closed now," even as sites like TripAdvisor and MapQuest continued to list the Piatt Place address at 301 Fifth Ave.
The closure is the latest in a steady retreat from western Pennsylvania. McCormick & Schmick's previously operated additional locations at the Homestead Waterfront and SouthSide Works. Both are now history, with WPXI reporting that the SouthSide Works spot went dark in 2021 during an earlier round of cutbacks.
Part of a Broader Pullback
The downtown Pittsburgh shutdown is not an isolated case. Across the country, multiple McCormick & Schmick's locations have quietly disappeared from city centers and reservation apps amid what appears to be a larger reshuffling of the brand.
Reporting from other markets has documented similar closures, including a high-profile spot along Chicago's riverfront, detailed in coverage of the Wacker Drive closure, and a suburban favorite that shut its doors overnight, recounted in a piece on the Town & Country shutdown.
Where Staff And Customers Go
Landry's has said it is working to relocate employees to other properties and nudged diners toward its remaining concepts in the region, according to its statement reported by WTAE. For fans of surf and turf, that means looking to fellow Landry's brands still operating in the broader market.
The company names Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse, Morton's The Steakhouse, the Grand Concourse, and Mitchell's Fish Market among its lineup of restaurants nationwide, as listed on the Landry's website.
What Comes Next
So far, there is no public word on who might take over the now-empty Piatt Place dining room. Recent materials from Piatt Companies do not name a successor tenant for the prominent Fifth Avenue space.
For the moment, one of downtown's long-running white-tablecloth anchors sits vacant, while Landry's points would-be diners to its other nearby restaurants and Piatt Place waits to see what moves in next.
