PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

“I’m a pretty weird person,” Amanda Abernathy says. “I don’t feel like I fit in in most places. I feel at home at Bottlerocket.”

She’s so comfortable at the Allentown bar, she got its mascot “George” — a grinning, starry-eyed disco ball in a pillbox cap — tattooed on her ankle. Her husband, Jeremy Wescoat, has one inked above his knee.

“I connect with the staff and other patrons,” Abernathy says. “The decor appeals to my sense of nostalgia and comfort and the events reflect the breadth of my personality.”

PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

Open six days a week, Bottlerocket Social Hall is a bar, performance space, classroom, community hub and time capsule. Comedy rules the Arlington Avenue spot, with locally and nationally known performers getting yuks out of ‘Burghers. Past acts include Nick Thune, a frequent late-night talk show guest, and “Saturday Night Live” writer Vannessa Jackson. Bands, dancers, podcasters and DJs also take the stage.

Emmy-nominated writer and actor Mekki Leeper has headlined Bottlerocket three times with his irreverent stand-up.

“They book comedians that usually only people in New York and L.A. get to see,” he says. “They draw a really cool audience of comedy nerds in Pittsburgh. It’s one of my favorite groups of people to perform for, really smart people hoping to see something interesting and weird.”

PHOTOS BY LAURA PETRILLA

In 2023, Bottlerocket attracted more than 28,000 people to Allentown. In addition to watching performances, they participated in “Mario Kart” tournaments, dating games, Elvis-themed bingo, movie screenings and comedy classes.

General Manager Hannah Confer’s favorite affair is the annual Wedding Party. Bottlerocket hires a live band and a “family” of improvisers who stay in character all night as they interact with patrons. It’s the perfect marriage of fantasy and reality. There’s even a cookie table.

Confer, a service-industry veteran, was a ’til-death-do-us-part Bottlerocket patron before landing a position.

“I sent [co-owner] Chris [Copen] a ’70s-themed PowerPoint about why they needed to hire me,” she says. “He called me 20 minutes later.

“What makes it a good place to work is that we’re doing cool stuff. Everybody here wants to be here. There’s no drama, just a great synergy and passion for what we’re doing. There’s always something to be excited about.”

While you don’t need a membership card to access the fun, customers can join for $10 a month or $100 a year to receive around-the-clock happy-hour pricing, tickets to three shows a month and other perks. At press time, the venue had enrolled 638 members.

PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA

The unassuming Hilltop building was a gathering place long before 2022, when Chris Copen and Joe Calloway of local real estate investment company RE360 took it over. From the early 20th century through 2016, parishioners of Allentown’s St. George Church would pack the place, then known as St. George Lyceum, to have a beer, shoot pool or enjoy a potluck dinner. During its ’70s heyday, members gave the interior a makeover.

Aesthetically, things haven’t changed much: same faux wood-paneled walls, drop ceiling, linoleum floor and lo-fi TVs showing Steelers highlight reels from Three Rivers Stadium. There’s something about sippin’ an Iron City while watchin’ the Steel Curtain on a grainy screen that makes my black-and-gold heart swell.

The name of the business was inspired by a vintage bottle rocket Copen found at a Lawrenceville antique store. “We wanted a name that was nostalgic, but youthful,” he says. “Something that makes you think about kids in the ’70s.”

PHOTOS BY LAURA PETRILLA

“There’s a picture of me, my brother and another friend on the wall,” says Davey Baldauf, who joined the lyceum more than half a century ago, when the hall became a private club and kept the saintly name. “I was glad to see Chris and his team take it over and keep it going as a club. Their hearts are in it. It helps keep the neighborhood going, too.”

Copen, who founded Point Blank Comedy at Point Park University in 2016, was in Los Angeles writing jokes for famous people when the pandemic started. The Johnstown native moved back home. In 2021, he was on track to start a vintage comedy theater below a shop on Potomac Avenue in Dormont called Dad’s Basement. Renderings of that proposed space look a lot like present-day Bottlerocket.

Irreconcilable differences forced the comedian to cut ties with his original partners, vacate the lower level and get his laughs on the road.

The lyceum was ready-made for his retro vision.

“I’m very appreciative that we have that history and are able to honor it in a way that we love,” Copen says. “We’ve never had a lyceum member come in and be disgruntled about what it’s become.

There’s no on-site kitchen, but the bar offers chips, popcorn, candy and hot dogs. On Independence Day 2024 in Grandview Park, Bottlerocket lit the fuse on a food cart called BottleDogs. With fireworks illuminating the sky over Pittsburgh, they sold 412 hot dogs.

PHOTOS BY LAURA PETRILLA

Bottlerocket’s the kind of multi-faceted, yet understated, entertainment complex that’s popping up across the country. In June, Copen attended the National Independent Venue Association Conference in New Orleans to hobnob with other low-key club owners from places such as Milwaukee’s Cactus Club, Songbyrd Music House in Washington, D.C., and The Crocodile in Seattle.

Last year, nobody in attendance at the conference knew about Bottlerocket, but this time there was a buzz about it. Not a bad start for a businessman who claims to have no clue what he’s doing.

“The goal is to have the best night out every night for everyone,” Copen says. “We’re getting inquiries from people who want to put a Bottlerocket in their cities. We’re doing something people want to emulate.”