Entry No. 64 — the Pittsburgh file — filed under: closed
Black Forge Coffee House
This is a memorial, not a recommendation. Black Forge ran a genuinely odd and beloved thing for years — black-metal decor, serious espresso, arcade cabinets, all-ages bills where you could catch a doom set at 8pm holding a coffee — but the McKees Rocks location closed in May 2023 and the Allentown flagship dropped the Black Forge name that June. The old website, blackforgecoffee.com, now 301-redirects to a chiropractor's homepage, which is about as unambiguous as a business obituary gets. Ticketing and venue-directory listings for it still drift around the internet showing zero upcoming events; those are echoes, not a calendar.
→ Three more underground music & performance in Pittsburgh — never the same twice
The story
Ashley Corts opened Black Forge Coffee in Allentown in 2015 on crowdfunding money, with a premise that reads like a dare and worked anyway: metal, coffee and video games in one storefront at 1206 Arlington Avenue. The espresso was serious, the decor was black, the arcade cabinets were free-standing furniture, and the room — about a hundred people, all ages — booked bills that a bar could not. A second location followed in McKees Rocks in 2019.
The show calendar was the part that made it a venue rather than a cafe with loud music. Across a few years the rooms hosted metal, grindcore, noise and experimental sets, goth nights, electronic bills and art openings, with Wolf Eyes, Wormrot and AL1CE among the touring names, plus community fixtures like Twin Peaks Day and early editions of the Allentown Night Market. Because there was no liquor license in the equation, teenagers could stand in the same room as the band, which is rarer in Pittsburgh than it sounds.
It came apart in stages. Kelly Braden — who founded the Allentown Night Market and owns The Weeping Glass a few blocks away on E. Warrington — took over the struggling Allentown shop in the summer of 2022. In May 2023 Corts announced the McKees Rocks location was closing. That June came the decision to retire the name entirely: "Black Forge is not Black Forge without Ashley," Braden told NEXTpittsburgh. "That was her journey." In July 2023 the Arlington Avenue shop reopened as Grim Wizard Coffee, keeping the drink menu and the Hellhound, dropping heavy live bands out of deference to the apartments upstairs, and taking a name Braden and Chad Hammitt, formerly of Zeke's Coffee, had picked as the doomiest one they could think of. The old domain, blackforgecoffee.com, now 301-redirects to a chiropractor's homepage.
What it's like
Nothing, because there is nothing to arrive at. Black Forge as a venue does not exist in either location: McKees Rocks shut in 2023 and the Allentown storefront at 1206 Arlington changed hands, changed names and stopped booking heavy shows. What you will find if you search is a layer of internet sediment — ticket aggregators and venue directories still carrying a Black Forge page, complete with capacity, past-show history and a cheerful "no upcoming events," which is a database record rather than a calendar. The one thing worth doing with the address is walking it: 1206 and 1226 Arlington are the same block, and Bottlerocket Social Hall at the second number is a functioning venue with a calendar you can actually buy into.
The move: Skip it. If what you wanted was an all-ages show you can attend on caffeine rather than beer, Bottlerocket Social Hall is a short walk up Arlington Ave from the old Allentown storefront and books bills just as unpredictable.
📍 Before you go Permanently closed as a Black Forge venue. McKees Rocks shut in May 2023 (Pittsburgh Business Times, 30 May 2023) and the Allentown shop retired the Black Forge name in June 2023 (NEXTpittsburgh, 8 Jun 2023) while the coffee operation continued under different branding. The official domain now redirects to alohafamilychiro.com, and aggregator venue pages listing it as bookable are stale. Drop from any live listing.
- 📍 McKees Rocks
- 💸 $
- ⚡ Big night
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: Closed — McKees Rocks location shuttered May 2023; former Allentown location 1206 Arlington Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15210 rebranded June 2023
Hours: Added 2026-08-26 — confirm current hours before you go.
⚠ Seasonal or scheduled — always check before you go.
Pair it with
- Bottlerocket Social Hall — 1226 Arlington Ave — the same block as the old Black Forge storefront at 1206, and the room that actually inherited the job of booking things a bar wouldn't.
- The Weeping Glass — Kelly Braden's oddities shop on E. Warrington, a few blocks downhill; she is the person who took over the Allentown coffee shop and retired the Black Forge name.
- Allentown Night Market — Black Forge hosted early editions of it, Braden founded it, and it still takes over the same Allentown streets twice a year — the closest thing to the old crowd reassembling.
More weird in Pittsburgh
Good to know
Is Black Forge open?
No. The McKees Rocks location closed in May 2023 and the Allentown shop retired the Black Forge name that June, reopening in July 2023 as Grim Wizard Coffee under new ownership. The official website now redirects to an unrelated chiropractic practice.
So did the coffee shop itself close?
Not in Allentown. Kelly Braden had taken over that shop in summer 2022 and kept it running under the new name, drink menu largely intact — including the Hellhound. What ended was the branding and the heavy live bookings, the latter because of the apartments above the storefront.
Why do ticket sites still list it as a venue?
Because aggregator pages outlive businesses. Directory entries still show the old 1206 Arlington Ave address, a 100-capacity all-ages room and a back catalogue of past shows with zero upcoming events. Treat any of those listings as an archive, not an invitation.
Where do I go now for an all-ages Pittsburgh show?
Bottlerocket Social Hall, twenty doors up the same street at 1226 Arlington Ave, books an unpredictable calendar on event nights only. Farther east, The Mr. Roboto Project has run all-ages and volunteer-booked since 1999.
Is anything left of the McKees Rocks location?
Not as Black Forge. That storefront on Chartiers Avenue stopped operating in 2023 and the business did not reopen elsewhere in the Rocks. If you are already out that way, the neighborhood's durable food landmark is Pierogies Plus on Island Avenue.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: tourlala.com · arcane.city · Official site
last checked: 2026-08-26