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Over the past seven years, Kate Lasky and Thomas Skowronski, chefs at Apteca, have grown what started with pierogi pop-up nights into one of Pittsburgh’s most popular and well-respected vegan restaurants. They are now finalists for the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
“We’re really excited,” Lasky said. “We have an amazing group of people who are now a part of this and are committed every day to doing a great job and maintaining this happy and healthy environment. Where we all support each other.
“So it’s amazing when something like this happens. It’s a little sad that it’s just our name, but it feels special to represent Pittsburgh, the city we both grew up in.
Apteka opened on the Bloomfield-Lawrenceville border in 2016, with a custom bar the couple built themselves. With a plant-based menu of Eastern European-inspired dishes (including pierogies, of course), the two stick to what works for them — and outdo many other vegan restaurants.
I asked Laskin about the challenges of running a restaurant — especially a vegan one — in the Steel City, what Pittsburgh can do to support local restaurants, and what Apteca’s crew is taking away from the adjustments they’ve made during the pandemic shutdown.
This interview has been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Q: In the last year or so, some of Pittsburgh’s most popular vegan restaurants have closed; B52 in Lawrenceville ended operations in 2022 and Onion Maiden in Allentown closed at the end of March. Something about Pittsburgh or vegan restaurants that doesn’t click here? Do you think it’s harder to run a vegan restaurant in Pittsburgh than in another city?
A: I think the hardest part is running a small business. They go into things like who will cover a shift if there is a lost call; For us it’s usually me or Tomasz covering it, and those things really add up, just physically and emotionally working crazy hours.
Pittsburgh has been amazingly supportive of us and all of our friends who have these vegan places. I think people are really open to them and willing to put their doubts aside and try something new. This is not something that happens in every city.
Here is something special for all of us. [vegan restaurants] They are really successful and very busy. Onion Maiden had a lot of people dying for them, and it wasn’t just people who were vegan.
The real test is when you’re six years old and still working 14-hour days. How long can you maintain this lifestyle? Some places with different models have recognized this, but most of us are working those 14-hour days, and that’s a lot of draining. That was one of the reasons we went three days a week during the pandemic.
The first year we were open, Tomasz and I had four days off the whole year, which is crazy. But I was 27, and I was like, okay, it’s not that big of a deal. But these are years of 90-hour work weeks, and a lot of missed holidays, and at some point it just wears on you.
I think a lot of people have just faced that crossroads, “I’m trying to move on to the next phase of my life.” How can I achieve this balance? ” I have been searching for a long time, and there is no good answer to this question.
Q: What else do you think should be done to support local restaurants?
Answer: I think one challenge for Pittsburgh is that we used to have a lot of food schools, and now I think there are two; Bidwell is one and the other, I think, is a program through the CCAC. I recently did an event in Columbus, and this amazing culinary school has amazing tools and seems like it’s trying to create a career for people who are interested in cooking, and that’s a great asset to the city. The growing restaurant scene.
Another challenge is just trying to figure out how one can make this industry a career. It really wins people over, and finding something more sustainable is an uphill battle, especially when there are often higher costs involved in your restaurant.
We’re a funny model because we try to fill as little as possible and do it with volume. So we’re always packed, but that’s what works for us. We were able to take it. [providing] Health insurance and our employees work 40-hour weeks, which is usually not the case in this industry. But we’re small and can’t do everything – it took us years to get health insurance because it costs so much.
The environment is challenging. I think the answer for most people is, “Well, people have to accept the higher prices for dinner.” But that also has a really unique feel to it. So we’ve tried to balance that, I think. But it’s really challenging.
Q: What are some of the things that pharmacies did during the pandemic, and after things started to reopen, they said, “Hey, this worked really well,” or maybe “we’re going to try to do this differently?” saying
A: The big thing for us was changing hours, going from five days to three days. We strike this balance when we’re open for dining and not doing nights, we have to find a new balance of how to do a little more on the days we’re open.
We’ve done one last – hopefully – renovation before we reopen for dining. There’s always that battle between the projects we have to get to, so we’ve been able to check things off the list during the slow times. But the change of time – I think for a lot of people – made us pay more attention. We can change the menu more without stress or burden at the last minute; We can spend a lot more time searching for a better way.
We still have a backlog of projects, and it’s always hard to find time, but now it’s not like, “Okay, I’m going to stay up until 4 in the morning to do everything.”
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