Pittsburgh Seltzer Works Offers Fresh Summer Fizz from Swissvale

When John Seekings discovered that his favorite seltzer shop had come under some tough times, he decided to save it himself—and bought the business.

More than 100 years old, Pittsburgh Seltzer Works has been open and operating at 1671 Monongahela Ave. in for the last year and a half, thanks to Seekings of Regent Square and his business partner, Jim Rogal.

“We were huge seltzer drinkers and didn’t want to see it go out of business,” Seekings said. “We are in the communications business and had no experience—we knew nothing—we just loved seltzer.”

The two men, who also still own and operate the public relations business of Caroline Communications, named for Seekings’ daughter, took about six months to buy and move the business from its last location in Homestead. To learn the ropes, they apprenticed with seltzer experts and started building the new edition of their business venture.

“We fell in love with it immediately,” he said after attending the business’ open house.

It turned out—one of the previous owners lived on Macon in Regent Square. They met and the deal was done.

The new location in Swissvale is a warehouse space equipped with vintage machinery and bottles that were manufactured before 1941 in Czechoslovakia. The seltzer bottles themselves are hot commodities. Seekings found them through a Rhode Island man—who happened to have grown up in Squirrel Hill—who recently had a similar business that had just shut down.

“Of course—welcome to Pittsburgh,” he said of the coincidence.

There are about 10,000 of the glass bottles at the business today. Pittsburgh Seltzer Works offers delivery and pickup, modeled after the old seltzer or milk man operation. Every Friday and Monday, they go out and replace empty bottles. Others will go through the seltzer and call when they run out.

“We make it all right here and keep it easy,” Seekings said. “We know all of our customers by name, they text, email, Facebook and everything else.”

All of the machinery is over 100 years old. If they have any delays, customers have been understanding, offering help and other support.

“This is like that mom and pop type of thing and we take great pride in that,” he said. “We have met the best people and they’re enjoying it.”

All of the seltzer is fresh, filtered and unflavored. Syrups are available at the business while customers can prepare it for themselves in different ways, whether it’s with a adult beverage, fruit or other flavoring.

Seekings said he personally loves their product and tells people about it at every chance.

“At the end of the day, it’s cold water with CO2,” he said. “It’s just this kind of fizzy thing—but it tastes great, it’s so refreshing. It’s very difficult to mimic what we do here because each bottle is about seven pounds because of the pressure.”

He wants everyone to taste the difference.

“We are all word of mouth,” Seekings said. “It’s nostalgic. Once you start and get used to drinking it, you’ll take it over other sodas any day.”

The seltzer costs $1.50 a bottle and come in crates of 10. The business also collects a $35 security deposit for the bottles themselves because of their worth. For more information, call 412-431-1898.