New businesses within Siena at St. Clair continue to open
A staff member prepares a chopped salad at Hello Bistro.
The Xfinity store in Upper St. Clair
A staff member takes a customer’s salad order at Hello Bistro.
The doors continue to open for new business ventures at Siena at St. Clair.
Among the offerings now at the former site of the Consol Energy headquarters in Upper St. Clair include Hello Bistro, an Eat’n Park Hospitality Group restaurant, and a Comcast Xfinity Store.
Hello Bistro joins another Eat’n Park venture, The Porch at Siena, at the retail complex across Route 19 from South Hills Village Mall.
“It’s really hard to find a concept where somebody who wants to eat really healthy, but somebody who wants to indulge can indulge, as well,” Becky McArdle, the hospitality group’s manager of communications, said about the idea behind Hello Bistro, which now has five locations. A sixth is coming to Cochran Road in Mt. Lebanon this fall.
“If you’re in the mood for something really healthy, you customize your own salad to be as healthy as you want,” she continued. “You can pick kale. You can pick dressing on the side.” On the other hand are such offerings as burgers and the restaurant’s hand-cut french fries: “If you have one, you’ll want to eat them every time you come.”
The salad bar is do-it-yourself without having to do it yourself. Behind the counter are employees – “We like to call them our ‘salad Sherpas,'” McArdle said – who put together what you choose from a variety of greens and 55 toppings.
“We make it as easy and friendly as possible,” she explained. “It’s meant to be a fast-casual experience, so you can come in, get what you need, and have a nice, quick lunch or quick dinner.”
Comcast also is striving for customer-friendly experiences with its series of new Xfinity stores, with the location at Siena at St. Clair representing the fifth in the Pittsburgh area.
“If you were at an older service center, you probably had to wait in line for a long time,” Comcast public relations manager Josephine Posti said. “It was very impersonal, nothing interactive at all.”
The Xfinity Store aims to improve on that scenario.
“You come in here, and if there are enough people where there would be some kind of queue, you are given a number,” Posti explained, “and then you are able to go demo products you might not be familiar with, walk around the store, and then your number will pop up on the screen when it’s time to be served.”
The store features the likes of flat-screen televisions, computer tablets and a seating area for demonstrations of Comcast’s new offerings.
And if, after conducting Comcast business, you’re in the mood for food, Hello Bistro also provides an opportunity to help others through its #GiveSomeGreen initiative. Order one of the restaurant’s designated items, and Hello Bistro will donate one pound of produce to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s Produce to People program.
“We’re all about people, and we’re all about helping our communities,” McArdle said. “And we care about food. So it just makes sense that when people order food, we give food back to the community.”