New bar, restaurant to open at former Sauce location in Bridgeville
Clear plastic sheets lining the windows of the former Sauce restaurant in Bridgeville are hindering the view of what’s happening inside.
Those sheets are part of the construction taking place to the space – located at Washington Avenue and Station Street – as Randy Tozzie and Susan McMahon, owners of Bakn in Carnegie, are looking for similar success on a different concept only a few minutes away.
The couple is putting their twist on an elevated comfort food experience to accompany a wide variety of drinks into their second location with the hopeful early spring opening of Mac & Toz Alehouse.
“We’ve been there before for a gathering with our friends and thought it was a great location,” Tozzie said. “It’s in a great spot, and Bridgeville is a great town to be in, especially that corridor of Washington Pike.”
Tozzie, also the head chef at Bakn, is focused on providing a large selection of craft and artisanal beers, seasonal craft cocktails, small batch wines, scotch, bourbon and whiskey with varieties of burgers, macaroni and cheese, salads, wings and bar-bite options.
“We want people to enjoy it,” Tozzie said. “It will be more of an enticing atmosphere. Bakn is a restaurant with a bar. The new place in Bridgeville is going to be a bar with a kitchen. The location and town is a vital part of the community. We just want to be a part of that.”
Sauce was subject to a consumer alert from the Allegheny County Health Department in July for having “multiple coolers not maintaining proper product temperature/unsafe cold holding, unsafe hot holding and improper cooling.”
The alert – posted on the front door of the restaurant for several days in July – was accompanied by ACHD finding several other issues, according to the department’s website. It is unknown whether the alert had any correlation with the restaurant shutting down.
Current efforts are being made to clean the entire building before a new, light industrial look will be installed in the space that will feature bars constructed out of salvageable wood.
“The property became available and we were in the right opportunity to do it,” Tozzie said about jumping at the opportunity with McMahon. “We are thrilled to open up a second location with a different kind of concept.”