Cold Friends Kitchen Is Quickly Becoming the South Side’s BFF (2024)

The food truck is stationed at Velum Fermentation on Jane Street and offers late-night hours.

Kristy Graver,

PHOTO BY @OFFSKRIPTCREATIVE

Cold Friends Kitchen warms my horror-loving heart, and not just because their logo is a burger-stacked skull that might be my next tattoo.

Five days a week — including Fridays and Saturdays until 3 a.m. — they park outside of Velum Fermentation on the South Side to dish out some of the best affordable comfort food in the city. The menu features appetizers, sandwiches, bowls, pork belly, smashburgers and vegan-friendly fodder as well as a new Pay-It-Forward option that buys a hot meal for someone less fortunate. More than 20 patrons have paid it forward in the first two weeks of the program.

PHOTO BY @OFFSKRIPTCREATIVE

Owners Gabriel Knecht and Thomas Bango prepare the grub fresh at the end of the night and make deliveries as they head back to their prep kitchen. People from as far away as the United Kingdom have reached out to buy meals for Pittsburghers in need. Struggling to make ends meet? Contact Cold Friends via direct message and they’ll discreetly add you to the citywide meal drop list.

I first met Knecht last year while he was organizing an annual free art, music and food festival at Velum celebrating the life and music of late-rapper Mac Miller, a Point Breeze native who died of an overdose in 2018.

PHOTO BY @OFFSKRIPTCREATIVE

In addition to a Mac-themed menu that included mocktails made by Velum, TLC Libations, Jackworth Ginger Beer Brewery and Goodlander Cocktail Brewery, the 2024 event included a free pig roast. The 250-pound porker that was raised on Velum’s spent grain ended up feeding hundreds of people.

They continued to go big by hosting the largest Narcan handout in Pittsburgh history and donated harm reduction supplies to local outreach centers. Over the years they’ve donated artist submission fees and a portion of the proceeds from raffle tickets and food and beverage sales to the Mac Miller Foundation, which supports young artists and musicians in underserved neighborhoods with resources, including help finding addiction treatment. Money was also raised to purchase and distribute 3,000 fentanyl test strips.

Knecht, Bango and their entire staff are in recovery.

Several years ago, Bango, an artist, musician and entrepreneur who spent two decades as a steel industry fabricator and foreman, was contemplating a career change. That’s when his pal Knecht, who was helming the kitchen at Lawrenceville’s Dive Bar & Grille, got him a job at the restaurant.

Knecht later brought the New York-based brand Love, Peace + Grilled Cheese to Pittsburgh and became Velum’s official food provider. When that interstate partnership fizzled, the chef decided to rebrand and joined forces with the business-minded Bango.

The Cold Friends name was repurposed from a clothing line Bango designed years ago. “Warm Beer, Cold Friends” was the company’s motto. Since April, they’ve been slinging eats at the brewery and creating a support network for people in recovery. All the while, they’re creating dishes that, according to Knecht, are “the culinary equivalent of a hug from your grandma.”

“I like big comforting flavors. I like messy and greasy, but also the technical, more refined stuff, says Knecht, who learned how to make elevated fare while working at Bar Marco. “I thought it would be nice to marry those two things on a menu. I wanted to wrap something high-end in a casual blanket and feed more people good food.”

Some of the fan favorites he created for Love, Peace + Grilled Cheese (including the Holy Smokes burger that I worship) remain in Cold Friends’ repertoire with some upscale tweaks such as edible flowers on top of the arancini. They print new menus daily, so that if they have a brilliant idea at midnight, they can put it in rotation the next day.

Knecht, who was homeless for a time, is a world traveler who finds culinary inspiration wherever he goes. The Cold Friends crew recently visited restaurants up and down the California coast like foodie Magellans. The globetrotters use ingredients that are locally and sustainably sourced and are working to make their business a zero-waste kitchen.

A new menu dropped this week with items such as the Black Miso Wrap with bok choy, purple yam, broccoli tip greens, kimchi, black mulberry-plum miso glaze, edamame and Thai basil. That’s not something you can typically get at 3 a.m. after you’ve pulled a double-shift or when you need a cheap, post bar-hopping bite. At Cold Friends, they believe service industry workers and night owls deserve better than day-old wings and cold pizza.

“We do everything a high-end restaurant does with a tenth of the space,” Knecht says. “It’s not about money, it’s about what good you can do for another person. I’m doing this because I’ve been on both sides of it. The work is gratifying and moves the needle for the whole community. That is what Cold Friends is; we are competitive, but we are competing against stereotypes in the food industry.”

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Cold Friends Kitchen Is Quickly Becoming the South Side’s BFF (2024)
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