Entry No. 47 — the Pittsburgh file — filed under: tea house
Bantha Tea Bar
Brett Boye and Jack Ball found an abandoned plumber's office on Penn Avenue in 2013 and spent two years rebuilding it with the Fourth River Workers Guild — stucco walls, a mosaic-tile floor, and a bar counter assembled from old trolley tracks and glass bottles. It opened September 1, 2015, runs partly on rooftop solar, filters its water by reverse osmosis, and has never served alcohol. The tea list is long and unembarrassed: Lapsang Souchong, three preparations of guayusa, Ancient Phoenix Puer, and house herbal blends named Phlegm No More and Damiana Dreams, all $4 a cup, plus ceremonial cacao and a Bloomfield Fog at $6 to $7. Food is a small rotating tray of soups, brownies and cookies from local bakers rather than anything resembling dinner. The same room hosts live music, comedy and poetry, which is why the mugs are locally thrown and the chairs are easy to push aside.
→ Three more weird eats & drinks in Pittsburgh — never the same twice
The story
Brett Boye and Jack Ball took an abandoned plumber's office on Penn Avenue in 2013 and spent two years rebuilding it by hand with the Fourth River Workers Guild, on permaculture principles and largely from reclaimed material. The result is a room you can read: stucco walls, a mosaic-tile floor, a cobbed ceiling, and a bar counter assembled from salvaged trolley tracks and glass bottles. It opened on September 1, 2015. Rooftop solar runs part of it, the water goes through reverse osmosis before it meets a leaf, and there has never been a liquor license.
The tea list is long and unembarrassed. Blacks include Lapsang Souchong, Ancient Phoenix Puer and a house blend called Bantha Tracks; the green side carries three guayusas (traditional, lavender-sage, citrus-ginger) plus matcha and genmaicha; the herbal column runs past twenty, with rotating seasonal blends like Rites of Spring and Sunnyside. Everything hot is four dollars a cup, including the coffee, which comes from Sweet Unity Farms in Tanzania. The specialty end runs six to seven dollars: a Bloomfield Fog of Earl Grey and lavender, and a ceremonial cacao made from single-origin Guatemalan cacao. The Star Wars joke in the name is not a one-off - the seasonal lemonade is a Lemon Saber.
Food is deliberately not the point: a small daily-changing tray of soup, brownies and cookies from Pittsburgh bakers like Prohibition Pastries, nothing mistakable for dinner. The room holds 49, has two bathrooms and a partial kitchen, and rents out; the floor that holds tea drinkers by day holds live bands, DJs, comedy, poetry and the odd karaoke night after. The owners call it a hand-built safe space for meetings, philosophizing, gathering, activism and art, which explains the locally thrown mugs and chairs light enough to shove aside.
What it's like
You order at the counter from a menu that assumes you will ask questions, and the staff will answer them at length if you do - four dollars is a low enough stake to gamble on a tea you cannot pronounce. The room is small, hand-built and visibly so, with the trolley-track bar and the tile floor doing most of the talking; it seats 49 at capacity and feels full well before that. Nobody hurries you, and nobody offers you a drink, because there is no alcohol here at all and never has been. It closes at 7 every single night, which makes this an early date by design rather than by accident. If there is an evening event, the tables get pushed back and the same room becomes a venue, so check first if you want one mode and not the other.
The move: Get there by 5:30, order two things you can't pronounce — the Lapsang Souchong and a ceremonial cacao — and sit long enough to actually finish them, then walk one block up Penn to 5106 and catch whatever Mr. Roboto Project has at 8.
📍 Before you go Open Mon–Fri 12–7 and Sat–Sun 11–7; it closes at 7 every single night, so this is an early date by design. No alcohol, all ages, capacity 49. The website's event calendar is unreliable — call (412) 404-8359 or check their Instagram before counting on a show. Free street parking on Penn after 6pm Mon–Sat and all day Sunday.
- 📍 Pittsburgh
- 💸 $
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 5002 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Hours: Added 2026-08-26 — confirm current hours before you go.
Pair it with
- The Mr. Roboto Project — Roboto is one block up Penn at 5106 and is the natural second act - also alcohol-free and all-ages, also volunteer-built, and its shows start right about when Bantha shuts at 7.
- Center for PostNatural History — The postnatural museum is a block west at 4913 Penn, close enough that you can look at a spider-silk goat and then sit down with a pot of guayusa to discuss it.
- Apteka — Four blocks down Penn at 4606, Apteka is the dinner Bantha deliberately does not serve - vegan Central European, counter service, Thursday through Sunday only - and it does have the bar.
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Good to know
What are the hours?
Monday to Friday noon to 7pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am to 7pm. The 7pm close is firm and applies every day of the week, so plan it as the first half of an evening rather than the whole thing.
Is there really no alcohol?
None, and there never has been - the place opened in 2015 without a liquor license and has stayed that way. It is all-ages as a result, which is part of the point; the owners built it as a third space rather than a bar. If you want a drink after, the Penn Avenue corridor has options within a few blocks.
How do I find out what is happening there at night?
Call (412) 404-8359 or check their Instagram. The website has an event calendar and a link to add their Google calendar, but it is not reliably current, so a phone call is the honest way to confirm a show before you build an evening around it.
What does it cost?
Every hot tea is $4 a cup, as is the coffee. Specialty drinks - the Bloomfield Fog, ceremonial cacao, matcha latte, dirty chai - are $6 to $7, and lemonades run $7 to $8. Food is a small rotating selection of soup and baked goods rather than a priced menu you can plan around.
Where do I park?
Street parking on Penn Avenue is free after 6pm Monday through Saturday and all day Sunday, which lines up neatly with the last hour before close. Before 6pm you are paying the meter or hunting the residential side streets, where non-permit parking is capped at an hour.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Official site
last checked: 2026-08-26