Community Kitchen Pittsburgh is bringing its culinary programs and famous fish fries home to Uptown

Two weeks before its annual Lenten fish fry, students at Community Kitchen Pittsburgh are piloting a new dessert.

During a Friday morning meeting, executive chef Bruce Harris pulls a recipe for banana pudding Rice Krispie Treats for “the 106s” — students from the nonprofit culinary school’s 106th class — to test out. Three class tiers, encompassing Community Kitchen’s range of programs, all go to work, supervised by Harris and chef Joe Joint, the in-house baker and a CKP graduate (class 76).

“I think the flavor’s there,” Joint tells the students after sampling the treats. “Needs a little tweaking, but that’s the point of what we did … Making it, trying to work out all the kinks.”

“Recipe development,” Harris says. “R and D.”

Everything at Community Kitchen, which provides culinary training and job placement to students at no cost, presents a learning opportunity. The morning’s dessert development flows into making a family meal for lunch, which then doubles as a commencement for one class.

After thanking the graduating students, Harris adds, “Be sure to stop by for fish fry and say hello.”

Every year, says Community Kitchen founder and executive director Jennifer Flanagan, there’s nothing like fish fry. The organization’s biggest fundraiser, the fish fry is a community event so beloved that it even brings back CKP alumni eager to volunteer.

“The firemen come down, the public works people come over,” Flanagan tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “Politicians show up, you get all your city councilors. The gang’s all here.”

Flanagan attributes the fish fry’s popularity — Community Kitchen’s is frequently named the best in the region — to the quality of the food, all of which is made from scratch.

“We’re trying to teach people how to cook. So we’re doing hand-cut fries and we’re making our own tartar sauce,” she says. CKP’s fried fish sandwiches feature “giant pieces” of hand-battered haddock on a BreadWorks bun, which “people love.” (Flanagan concedes that the fish is too big, but “it’s part of the experience.”)

The pace of the fish fry is yet another learning opportunity for students, offering “very fast, a la carte” training from serving hundreds of diners in a single Friday night.

This year marks Community Kitchen’s seventh annual fish fry, and the event is bittersweet, as it will be the organization’s last in Hazelwood. Last June, CKP quietly announced it would move to a larger space in Uptown, now planned for fall 2025.

Flanagan remembers that their current building on Flowers Avenue was converted in 2018 from a former G.C. Murphy five-and-dime store, and “it was empty for so long, it wasn’t on the post office rolls anymore,” she says. “We had to apply to get the address back into the system.”

Community Kitchen has since become a neighborhood landmark in a redeveloping Hazelwood, drawing visitors from across the region for its fish fry season, which began there, and its guest chef dinner series. This year, the nonprofit is partnering with nearby Hazel Grove Brewing to serve beer at its fish fries. CKP also launched a food truck initially stationed at Mill 19 in the Hazelwood Green development.

“We love this neighborhood. This neighborhood has been so good to us,” Flanagan says of Hazelwood. “But we really have outgrown this space … really, it’s a good problem to have, but it is sad to leave, because it’s been such a great home.”

The move to a new 20,000-square-foot warehouse will nearly double the footprint of Community Kitchen’s operations. In addition to its culinary training programs, CKP produces nearly 2,500 community meals per day, which go to school lunches, after-school programs, shelters, and nonprofits.

A larger space will also allow CKP to expand its in-demand butchery program, as well as open a grocery store and market set up to accept SNAP benefits. Flanagan notes that despite recent development, Uptown is still considered a food desert, and CKP’s move to the neighborhood will fulfill a need for a local market while also employing and training students in a new space.

“The fact that we’re putting that SNAP retailer in the grocery market, I think it’ll be helpful for the residents there,” Flanagan says. “A walkable market with all the staples, fresh produce, the meat that we’re sourcing from local farms … we’re excited about that.”

Similar to opening in Hazelwood, the new space, rumored to be a former UPMC laundry facility, has also long sat vacant, allowing CKP to “design it from the ground up,” Flanagan says. “Everything from loading in and loading out, to how the kitchen flows, we’re really putting a lot of thought into the building.”

For those wanting to ease into CKP’s fish fry future, its food truck is making the rounds for the first time this year. On Fridays during Lent, the fish fry-ready truck will come to the Southside Works and to Community Kitchen’s future location at 304 Jumonville St.

The Uptown stops will demonstrate that “we’re only about 10 minutes down the road” from Hazelwood, Flanagan says.

Community Kitchen, which Flanagan founded in 2013, started in Uptown, representing a full-circle moment for her. Since then, she reflects, Pittsburgh’s food industry has expanded significantly, touching other growth and representing even greater job opportunity.

“I always say this: without this industry, every other industry suffers,” Flanagan says. “Name [an] industry that wants to attract new employees. What do they do? They take them out to dinner. People look at neighborhoods, and the ones that are thriving have bars and restaurants.”

Executive chef Harris also hails from the Hill District, telling City Paper, “The fact that we’re going back is like a big [homecoming] for me.”

CKP’s fundamentals won’t change, says Harris, who espouses the now organization-wide philosophy of “love on a plate.”

“What I teach my students is that regardless of who [the food] is going to, they will receive it well if it’s made with love,” Harris says. “So in addition to all the culinary training, and how hard I am on them and all of that good stuff, at the end of the day, we want to serve good food to good people.”

This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2025.