Est. by r/pittsburgh
Basic B's Guide to The Burgh
A friend is visiting. She loves a Target run, thinks the Strip is kinda dirty, and has no opinions about food. Yinz answered the call.
49 ideas · July 2026
The Assignment
- Loves a Target / HomeGoods shopping moment. Big box stores.
- Thinks The Strip is kinda dirty.
- Doesn't give a shit about good coffee.
- Vegetarian. Pescatarian. Non-drinker.
- Casino: already on the list.
- Incline: done a few years back.
— a true East End Snob (at least I'm self aware)
Phipps Conservatory
Oakland
The runaway winner. Endless photo opportunities if she's an Instagram girlie. Everyone loves a botanical garden — even the people you'd swear wouldn't.
Anthropologie Home Outlet
Camp Horne Rd
Called, verbatim, "the ultimate basic b experience." There are only a handful of these in the entire country and we have one.
Cathedral of Learning
35th floor · Oakland
Take the elevator all the way up and look out the windows. Summer is perfect — barely anyone on campus. If someone gives you the business (they won't), say you're an alum.
Walnut Street
Shadyside
Shop the strip, dinner at Shady Grove, drinks at Mario's. Described by its own nominator as "basic as can be," which here is a compliment.
East Liberty & Bakery Square
East End
An easy half day. Target, Sephora, J.Crew Factory — enough basic shit to keep her happy while you sneak in some actual Pittsburgh. Best of all: not the mall.
SouthSide Works
South Side Flats
Urban Outfitters, decent restaurants, and — critically — a Cheesecake Factory you can reach without driving to the suburbs. Double-decker bus tour leaves from here too.
The Terminal
Strip District
The clean, renovated end of the Strip — none of the parts she'd call dirty. There's a Sephora. There's Puttshack. It is, as one commenter put it, basic b heaven.
The Waterfront
Homestead
Clean, pretty to walk through, and the outdoor space is a reliable photo op. Ulta, Target, Marshall's, Panera, Starbucks, PF Chang's, Old Navy — the full suite.
The Container Store
Settlers Ridge
"I think we all could benefit from some containing every now and then."
Ross Park Mall
McCandless
The original cry for help — "do I just take you to Ross Park Mall and call it??" — turns out to be a perfectly good plan. Pair it with what locals specify as "the nice" Cheesecake Factory.
Costco Food Court
Cranberry Twp
A hot dog and a Coke. Cranberry is the most recently remodeled of the three, and sales tax is 6% up in Butler County.
Mix Candle Co.
Lawrenceville / SouthSide Works
Build a custom candle or perfume, pick your own scents, leave with something that says you did an activity. Peak craft-and-caption energy.
IKEA
Robinson
The go-to for basic visitors everywhere — but check first whether she already has one at home. If she does, the magic is gone.
Butler Street
Lawrenceville
A boutique crawl with no particular destination. Good browsing, good windows, good stopping for something iced halfway down.
A $55 T-Shirt
Steel City or 412
The souvenir tax. She will wear it once at an airport and you will both pretend it was reasonably priced.
Apteka
Bloomfield
Vegan Polish, and a genuinely fantastic experience for a vegetarian. Walk it off through Bloomfield afterward and hit Scoops — or Leona's for ice cream sandwiches.
Pusadee's Garden
Lawrenceville
Loads of vegetarian options, and they'll swap proteins for vegetables on request. Contrarian move: sit inside and look out at the garden — same view, no bugs, and a much better argument for someone with opinions about dirt.
Mad Mex
Several
Can turn any dish vegan or vegetarian, and it's a cutesy basic-b type place besides. The rare recommendation that solves the dietary problem and the personality problem at once.
Ritual House
Downtown
Two separate people flagged this one, and the pitch is refreshingly honest: the food is kind of boring and not very adventurous, but it's pretty. Which, for this trip, may be the entire point.
Open Road
Bloomfield
A non-alcoholic bottle shop — the single most considerate answer in the whole thread. Somewhere for a non-drinker to shop rather than politely decline.
Zenith
South Side
Vegetarian food inside a working antique shop. Everything on the wall is for sale, including the chair she's sitting on.
Oakmont Bakery
Oakmont
Submitted flatly, without elaboration, as a known fact: basic bitches love Oakmont Bakery.
Café at the Frick
Point Breeze
Not lunch — luncheon. Greenhouse setting on the museum grounds, so you can fold it into a Frick afternoon and call the whole day cultural.
Tupelo Honey
Bakery Square
"The basic b's in my life also love Tupelo Honey, for some reason." Offered without further explanation, which is somehow the most convincing part.
Mocktails Above the Slopes
Allentown
OP's reaction, in full: "ahhh! perf."
National Aviary
North Side
Fun, educational, and carries a live risk of being pooped on — which turns out to be the selling point, because if a bird gets you, you get a pin.
Randyland
Mexican War Streets
Free, extremely colorful, and right down the street from the Mattress Factory. Maximum photos per dollar spent, because the dollars spent are zero.
Mattress Factory
Mexican War Streets
Room-sized installations that are basically built to be photographed, and the money goes to a good cause.
The Andy Warhol Museum
North Shore
You don't need to understand Pop Art to engage with it — the subjects are already familiar and it's extra colorful. Strong gift shop, which by now you understand is load-bearing.
The Frick Pittsburgh
Point Breeze
There's a French Modern exhibit up at the art museum — Matisse, Degas, Renoir. Names she'll recognize, which is the whole trick.
Bayernhof Museum
O'Hara Twp
A mansion full of automatic music machines, secret passages and a cave. "Nobody knows about it. It is an awesome tour, I take all visitors there."
Museum of Illusions
North Shore
Purpose-built for photos, and the most contested entry on this list.
Heinz History Center
Strip District
Six floors, an actual Mister Rogers set, and enough air conditioning to reset anyone's mood in August.
Roberto Clemente Museum
Lawrenceville
If there's any interest in sports at all: packed with history and very easily digestible. Appointment only, so plan ahead.
Gateway Clipper Fleet
Station Square
A boat. On the rivers. With the skyline going by. OP's response was "oh the clipper for sure!!" and honestly, yes.
A Pirates Game
PNC Park
Best view in baseball. Nobody said anything about the baseball.
Kennywood
West Mifflin
An old-fashioned amusement park where the nostalgia does most of the work. Fits neatly with a Waterfront afternoon — they're minutes apart.
Ligonier or Zelienople
An hour out
Cute historic towns — boutiques, restaurants, pretty scenery. OP nailed the pitch: "I'm sure she would love a Stars Hollow moment in the square with the gazebo."
Pittsburgh Botanic Garden
Oakdale
For when one botanical garden isn't enough. Head west toward the airport. Great gift shop here too, obviously.
North Shore Trail, by Bike
North Shore
Rent bikes, ride the trail. Great views, and — importantly for a city built on hills — it's flat. Stop at Redfin Blues partway.
Keystone Safari
Grove City
Feed giraffes, pet goats and cows. And the Grove City outlets are, as the nominator noted, like, right there.
August, Generally
All over
Free concerts in the parks, ballet at Hartwood Acres, Riverhounds home games, the Squirrel Hill Night Market, VegFest. Picnic or food-truck it.
Sewickley Village
Sewickley
Shop the village, then take a slow drive through Sewickley Heights and Bell Acres to look at houses neither of you will ever own.
Hot Mass
Downtown · after hours
The nuclear option, and the thread's favorite joke. OP's read: "lololol oh man this is it."
Carrie Blast Furnaces
Rankin
A rusting steel mill might seem like a weird pick for a basic b — but it's a genuinely solid tour, and, crucially, it's grammable.
Tina's, then Brillo
Bloomfield / Lawrenceville
The dive-bar combo, deployed at the end of an otherwise gentle itinerary. Recommended for the whiplash.
Primanti's, Then Early to Bed
Strip District
The minimum viable Pittsburgh. Submitted as a complete itinerary, followed immediately by the word "next?"
Sheetz
Anywhere, always
Order on the touchscreen. Do not explain it to her beforehand. Let it happen.
Tell Them Not to Come
From the comfort of your home
Posted eighteen minutes into the thread. Sits at zero upvotes. Included here for completeness, and because someone had to say it.