When Carol Held, owner of Brewer’s Bar, announced its sale at the end of last year, it was hailed as the end of an era for what was known as Pittsburgh’s oldest operating gay bar. Held penned a heartfelt goodbye, promising the Brewer’s 44-year legacy as an LGBTQ community space would continue when it reopened under new ownership.
“I want to thank everyone who has come out to support this bar [and] made this your home bar,” she wrote last December. “On a positive note, it [will] remain a safe space for you all.” Held also implored patrons, “Please support your bars — Blue Moon, P Town, Lucky’s, 5801, and Brewer’s new name soon.”
Days before Held’s 58th birthday in March, the sale went awry.
“When the deal fell through, I was like, maybe I’m not ready, and maybe it’s just timing,” she tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “My husband said to me the day that it all came down, ‘It’s time to pull up your big girl pants and get back to work.’ And I did.”
It’s not the first time the bar has begun a new chapter.
Held inherited Brewer’s Bar and Hotel from her late father, Andy Usner, a Pittsburgh police officer, who transformed it from a neighborhood spot into what’s been described decades on as a refuge, historic landmark, and a “cornerstone of Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ+ community.”
Held says her father often worked security details in the 1970s and befriended Lucky, the owner of an East Liberty gay bar. Lucky later tipped off Usner about a space for sale in Lawrenceville, and in 1981, helped him buy it and turn it into Brewer’s. (Held doesn’t know where the name came from — though it’s the most common question she’s asked — speculating that the former Iron City Brewery complex sits nearby at 34th St.)
Brewer’s, originally a hotel and bar, occupies a 125-year-old, five-story building on Liberty Ave. In the first-floor bar, the original stamped tin ceiling remains, and grand 1950s hotel chandeliers have been swapped for a full-size traffic light — part of a prank, Held believes — that has sat in a corner as long as she can remember.
In 1981, her father envisioned Brewer’s as both a gay bar and a haven, pushing back against the “non-educated people,” as he called them. Taking on a role his fellow police officers eschewed, Usner also umpired for the Steel City Softball League, known as Pittsburgh’s longest-running LGBTQ sports organization, founded the same year as Brewer’s.
During the peak of the AIDS epidemic, Usner offered the hotel’s 13 rooms to people suffering from the disease and displaced by their families. Often, he let them stay for free and gave them food and medicine, Held says. She recently met someone at Brewer’s who told her that, in the 1980s, they ran the only funeral home in Pittsburgh that accepted those who died as a result of AIDS, and her father often covered funeral and burial expenses.
Held didn’t imagine taking over Brewer’s Bar, but when her father died in 2010, she found she “didn’t want to let that piece of him go.”
“I got myself together, I came down here, and said, ‘Hi, I’m Carol, I’m the boss,’” she remembers.
“It [took] getting used to, you could say,” Held says. “[But] the more [I was] here in this building, it just inspired me to do the things that my dad did for the community. It rubbed off on me, and I was doing this back in return … like snowballing the things that my dad did.”
Since taking the reins 15 years ago, Held started a Christmas drive in honor of her father, now the annual Andy Usner Christmas Drive, which distributes food and hundreds of gifts to local LGBTQ organizations. She and the Brewer’s staff pitch in to serve an annual Christmas dinner at the bar, another tradition.
“We open our doors, and everyone is welcome,” Held says.
After a decade, Held grew concerned about the cost of the building’s upkeep and declining bar business, a trend even before the COVID pandemic hit. After 35 years in business, Brewer’s also started competing against more contemporary bars with full kitchens, premium cocktails, and upscale ambiance that drew younger patrons.
Last November, Held converted the bar’s two lower floors into a nightclub called The Underground with a DJ booth and light-up floor. While the space would’ve been packed five years ago, Held says it did well at first but fizzled after a couple of months, making her question if it might be time to pass on the business.
Still, she wanted to keep her father’s legacy alive, which meant returning to the bar’s roots and welcoming all parts of the community.
While the bar had long hosted drag performances, even before they were considered more mainstream, Held decided to embrace Pittsburgh’s growing leather scene, a subculture associated with clothing, fetish wear, kink, and BDSM.
“These are the groups that, during Pride, you don’t hear anything about,” Held explains. “You don’t hear about the leather guys, but these are the guys that mean so much to this community. They fundraise, they donate, they do so many good things … and I feel sometimes they don’t get the pat on the back that they should. [Now], these guys are up-and-coming.”
Held reached out to Dan Bear, a salon owner, dancer, and internationally known leather title holder.
“He’s a big deal,” Held says, bragging that Bear was “sashed” Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather 2023.
Bear hosted his first leather fetish night at Brewer’s in September 2023 as an offshoot of Steel City Fetish Con, and said he immediately felt at home.
“A little thing about Brewer’s, I’ve danced and worked in probably five different bars in Pittsburgh,” Bear says. These bars included the defunct Pegasus Lounge and Images Bar. “Putting shows together, Carol [Held] has been the most supportive and easiest to work with. And I mean, we hire all genders, all races, all ages, all body sizes. I don’t know of another bar in Pittsburgh where it’s as welcoming to everybody or focused on showcasing everybody.”
Bear says that while the leather community has existed for decades, it’s still not universally accepted, even among members of the LGBTQ community, something reflected in perpetual discourse about whether kink should be included at Pride.
“When little-old 17-year-old me went to the Pride parade and the leather guys and bear guys came around, it was inspiring,” Bear says. “We’re just as much a part of the community as anybody.”
Josh Englert belongs to Barons of Steel, a Pittsburgh leather and kink-associated private social club, the name of which is a play on steel barons. Bear met Englert through the Barons — “he’s my sash grandpa,” Bear says — which eventually brought him to Brewer’s.
“I found my people in the leather community, and I would support the different events at Brewer’s,” Englert says. “I just got to know Carol [Held], and then she just kept bugging me to become a bartender.”
Englert now bartends at Brewer’s in addition to a day job and hosts a monthly gear night. While Bear’s leather fetish night is more of a show featuring drag and strip artists, Englert describes his gear night as a “social night.” People are welcome to wear all varieties of gear, including leather, rubber, harnesses, and sports attire, and “just socialize with each other.” In partnership with the Barons, Brewer’s also hosts a gear swap night that invites people to donate and exchange leather pieces, making often-expensive leather more accessible.
“Leather is different to different people,” Englert says of the evolving leather community. “For some people, it’s just the material, and wearing it makes them feel a specific way, a mindset. For me, it’s an avenue to meet different people. So I love the aesthetics of leather, but the people that I’ve met on my leather journey are the most important thing about it to me.”
The Steel City Pups also have a monthly “puppy pound” meet-up at Brewer’s. A newer offshoot of leather culture and BDSM, pup play participants roleplay by dressing as pets (pups) and often enter dominant/submissive relationships with a “handler.” This year, Brewer’s hosted both Leather Pride and Pup Pride parties to kick off Pride Month.
With Bear and Englert aboard, Held is trying to expand and reimagine what Brewer’s can be, even asking the bar’s patrons what they’d like to see.
“What can we do to make Brewer’s alive and full of energy again?” she wrote in a Facebook post.
“I think our home base here is coming up with great ideas,” Bear says, including an underwear night, a glow night, and a plan for lube wrestling in June.
While filling out a bold new roster of events, Held says that for her part, she’ll always have a place for the bar’s and her father’s original customers.
“We get a lot of young people who will make comments and say, ‘I don’t want to go to Brewer’s. That’s where the old men are.’ But do you know the old men?” she asks. “They’re the ones that started this, you know? … They’re my people, and they’ll be my people until the day Brewer’s closes.”
The closing and likely demolition of Donny’s Place just across the Herron Avenue Bridge — once home to its own leather-themed bar and dance club, Leather Central — highlights Brewer’s continuing operation that much more. Brewer’s still serves Donny’s former regulars who would hop between the two bars.
Englert says, though Brewer’s is “pivoting” to the leather and fetish communities, it’s also still a great place to come and enjoy a drink. The bar gets foot traffic from sports games and its busy intersection, and on weekend nights, you can hear Cher and Britney Spears blasting out of its garage door.
Brewer’s also rents out space for weddings and private events. Bear hosted his annual Halloween party there, and for his birthday, Englert decked out the bar with pictures of Taylor Swift.
Bear says that when Brewer’s temporarily closed, something was lost.
“We met and went on tours of other bars to try and figure out where to go,” he says. “And it just didn’t feel the same … I’ve walked in every gay bar in this city, and you see people you know, and that’s great. But you walk into Brewer’s, the bartenders hug you, and they say, ‘Hey.’ And Carol [Held] thanks you and hugs you, and Josh [Englert]. It’s like a family reunion every time we have an event. And it’s really something more than just showing up and having a drink.”
When Brewer’s sale officially fell through in March, Held immediately called Bear.
“I said, ‘Get ready. We’re opening Saturday.’ He was like, ‘What?’” Held says.
“It was like Thursday,” Bear remembers. “I [said], ‘Carol, please 100% confirm this show is happening.’”
After being closed for a full month, the bar reopened with a leather fetish night, banking on unseasonably warm weather over St. Patrick’s Day weekend to draw a crowd.
“We had a very big response that day, and people coming in. Everyone was just so glad that it had opened back up again,” Held says. “And so that led to, OK, are we opening next weekend? Sure, let’s do it again next weekend, you know?”
“Right now, we’re working our way back up,” Held says. “It’s like starting a new business all over again, even though we are the oldest LGBTQ bar in Pittsburgh.”
Held adds that she’s “putting 150% into making a go of it, and I’m hoping, praying that we can turn things around.”
“That’s my ultimate goal, and I’m sure that’s their ultimate goal too, because they’re in this with me,” she says of Englert and Bear. “They’ve been my lifesaver.”
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2025.
