Pittsburgh has always had a talent for remembering what it loves. The chipped ham sandwich. The Skyscraper cone. The long counter and the glass display case piled high with cold cuts. For a generation of Pittsburghers, those memories belong to Isaly's, the deli and ice cream institution that once anchored neighborhoods across southwestern Pennsylvania. This summer, those memories become a destination again.
Jim and Leslee Conroy, owners of O'Hara-based Conroy Foods Inc., are opening a full Isaly's shop at 2111 Penn Ave in the Strip District, a 3,500-square-foot space that will seat between 50 and 70 guests and serve the deli classics and ice cream that made the brand a Pittsburgh institution for more than a century. The "Coming Soon / Summer 2026" signage is now up in the front windows, and the city is paying attention.
"They're both from Pittsburgh and grew up going to Isaly's. My dad was close friends with the previous owner. It holds a special place in their hearts."
Hannah Conroy, Marketing Director, Conroy Foods
Jim Conroy purchased the entire Isaly's brand in 2015, and the decade since has been a careful act of stewardship. The Conroys have collaborated with the Heinz History Center and drawn on an original Isaly's deli operations manual to make the new Strip District location as authentic as possible. The menu will include chipped ham sandwiches, Isaly's Bars, and of course the Skyscraper cone, those legendary hand-scooped towers of ice cream that no self-respecting Isaly's counter could do without. The shop will serve breakfast, lunch, and ice cream.
A Brand That Never Left Pittsburgh's DNA
Isaly's history stretches back more than 120 years. At its peak, the brand had dozens of delis dotting southwestern Pennsylvania, and the lunch counter at Isaly's was a social fixture in neighborhoods from Squirrel Hill to McKeesport. When most of those shops closed, the brand lived on in memory, in Primanti Brothers comparisons, and in the occasional argument about who made the best chipped ham in the city. A couple of independently owned Isaly businesses still operate in the region, including one in West View, but the new Strip District shop will be the first new Isaly's to open in Pittsburgh in a generation.
The Strip District is the right neighborhood for this comeback. Penn Avenue has transformed significantly over the past decade, drawing chefs, specialty grocers, coffee roasters, and weekend market crowds to what was once a working warehouse block. The foot traffic there is steady, the appetite for authentic Pittsburgh experiences is genuine, and the strip is already a corridor where history and new energy comfortably coexist.
Pittsburghers Reviving What Pittsburghers Built
The Isaly's opening is part of a quiet but deliberate trend in Pittsburgh: local families and entrepreneurs stepping in to restore the brands that shaped the city's identity. Isaly's is not being revived as a franchise play or a nostalgia brand for out-of-towners. It is being brought back by people who grew up eating there, who understood what the brand meant, and who spent a decade doing the work to get it right. That kind of ownership matters here.
For the Strip District, this is one more thread in an already rich weave. A neighborhood that has reinvented itself multiple times without losing its character gains another anchor that points unmistakably back to Pittsburgh. When Isaly's opens this summer, it will not just be selling sandwiches and cones. It will be selling the city back to itself, one chipped ham pile at a time.