Schenley Park Cafe History

The building that holds the Schenley Park Café and Visitor Center was originally designed and built between 1903 and 1904 by Pittsburgh architectural firm of Rutan and Russell (you may recognize their work at the University of Pittsburgh’s William Pitt Union, originally the Schenley Hotel). It was originally used as a picnic shelter, and two similar shelters were built around the same time but were torn down over the years. The Visitor Center is one of the few surviving buildings from the early days of park construction.

In its over 100 years in the park, the building has served as a concession stand for Phipps Conservatory, a tool shed in the 1930s, a workspace for the Pittsburgh Civic Garden Club, a nature museum housing snakes and other park creatures, and an office for workers conducting park repairs. Prior to the Parks Conservancy’s restoration project in 2001, the building had been closed to the public since the late 1980s.