ALEX BLYSTONE, GENERAL MANAGER OF VALLEY DAIRY RESTAURANT, SHOWS OFF THE EATERY’S ALL-AMERICAN BANANA SPLIT. | PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Apple pie is great, but when it comes to All-American eats, give me a banana split. After all, there’s often an Old Glory toothpick atop the classic dessert!

In 1904, David Strickler, a pharmacist apprentice and soda jerk at Tassel’s Pharmacy in Latrobe, cut a banana in half lengthwise and placed a slice on each side of a boat-shaped dish he designed. Then he put three scoops of ice cream between the banana halves, and drizzled pineapple sauce over the vanilla, strawberry sauce over the strawberry and chocolate syrup over the chocolate. Like a mad scientist with a brain freeze, Strickler pushed his highly caloric creation even further, adding whipped cream and chopped nuts to each scoop and placing a cherry on top of the scoops at each end of the dish!

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

A century ago, students at nearby Saint Vincent College referred to this sundae monstrosity as Dr. Dave’s.

I ate one last week — and it cured my bad mood!

Related: Which Western Pennsylvania Town Is Now In the ‘Banana Hall of Fame’

The pharmacy building, which the enterprising apprentice later bought and renamed Strickler’s Drug Store, is long gone, but there’s a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker in its place detailing the site’s sweet significance. And, in case you still weren’t convinced, there’s an enormous banana split sculpture next to it, fabricated by a bunch of Greater Latrobe Senior High School students.

Pittsburgh has its pickles, but in Latrobe, bananas are a big deal.

Listed in Smithsonian Magazine as one of “The 20 Best Small Towns to Visit in 2018,” Latrobe is also the birthplace of beloved children’s TV host Fred Rogers and golf legend Arnold Palmer. It’s gearing up for its annual Great American Banana Split Celebration, scheduled for Aug. 23-24. Briana Tomack, president and CEO of the Greater Latrobe-Laurel Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce, estimates there will be between 20,000 and 30,000 people in attendance. That’s bananas considering the year-round population of Latrobe is fewer than 8,000. (And for the record, most residents I spoke with for this piece pronounced it “LAY-trobe.”)

The free-to-attend event includes live music, food vendors, a baking contest, goat yoga, a banana-eating competition, a 5K race, a blood drive, kids’ activities, an area for banana fans 21 and over and (of course) mass consumption of banana splits. Last year, organizers went through approximately 4,000 bananas. Tomack anticipates even more foot traffic in town in 2025. To prevent banana slips, the peels are collected in designated bins and composted at an area farm.

People from across the globe journey to Latrobe to get the scoop on the split. In 2024, Michigan resident Steve Braithwaite showed up in a Ford F-150 pickup truck that he converted into a motorized banana. The Big Banana Car’s website, which highlights his cross-country adventures, also features a step-by-step guide on how to build your own.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

I think the folks at Valley Dairy Restaurant need a whole fleet of rolling yellow fruit: Although the banana split is served in eateries nationwide, the Latrobe-based chain has a special connection to the frozen treat. On a blustery day in May, I devoured their signature All-American Banana Split (and took a delicious turkey sandwich to go) while discussing the company’s history with Valley Dairy President Melissa Blystone.

Her grandfather, Joseph F. Greubel, opened the first of 13 locations in 1938 to sell candy, newspapers and homemade ice cream. Nicknamed “Ice Cream Joe,” he churned out small batches of the stuff after hours — using techniques he learned from his grandfather, Joseph A. Greubel, who launched Westmoreland County’s first commercial ice cream-manufacturing company in 1884.

Blystone’s dad, the late Joseph E. Greubel, who was also known as “Ice Cream Joe,” worked tirelessly to put Latrobe on the map for its contribution to the country’s collective sweet tooth. (Other towns have laid claim to the dairy delicacy.)

In 2004, the National Ice Cream Retailers Association named Latrobe as the birthplace of the triple-dipped sundae. The historical marker was erected in 2013, the Great American Banana Split Celebration’s inaugural year.

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

I attended last year’s bash and, after heavy doses of sun, fun and potassium, headed home to digest and, in keeping with the day’s banana theme, listen to “The Velvet Underground & Nico.”

Released in 1967 by New York-based rock band The Velvet Underground, the album features Andy Warhol’s “Banana” on the cover, complete with a sticker that revealed pink fruit underneath. The bold image has become an iconic symbol of the Pittsburgh-born artist.

“Though we have a variety of ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ records in the collection, we don’t have any that are perfectly sealed and pristine. We do have some that still have their banana peel completely adhered, though,” says Emily Rago, assistant director of archives at The Andy Warhol Museum.

None of Warhol’s “Banana” prints are currently on display at the North Shore facility, but the gift shop is ripe with banana ornaments, stress-relief toys, T-shirts, socks, sketchbooks and other pop-culture accoutrements.

The Warhol on Sandusky Street is just a hop, skip and a seventh-inning stretch away from PNC Park, where the Savannah Bananas are scheduled to play Aug. 29-30, when the Pittsburgh Pirates are on the road. (I hope they pass The Big Banana Car on the Turnpike!)

The Banana Ball Championship League is a barnstorming exhibition baseball league based in Savannah, Georgia that also includes the Party Animals, the Firefighters, the Texas Tailgaters and The Visitors.

Tickets for the 2025 Banana Ball World Tour are in such high demand that the league uses a lottery system to sell ’em. There are loads of wacky rules and the athletes play more for oohs, aahs and yuks than wins, similar to the basketball court bouts between the Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals.

Bananas, it seems, are the comedians of the fruit and vegetable world. On St. Patrick’s Day 1949, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that 25-year-old Edward McGilvray fell 40 feet from a North Side boarding-house window after slipping on a banana peel. He landed on his feet, suffering only a slight nosebleed. What a lucky guy!

Peter Kavanek was another Pittsburgher who nearly met his end thanks to a banana. Make that a lot of bananas. On Dec. 17, 1936 (42 years to the day before my birth), a blast at the Pittsburgh Banana Company on Smallman Street in the Strip District hurled the employee 15 feet and buried him up to his neck in bananas and debris. Some say the business practice of controlled ripening led to a buildup of flammable ethylene gas that ignited when Kavanek flipped the switch to an electric fan.

The explosion blew out all 54 windows in the neighboring St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, but Kavanek was pulled from the rubble relatively unscathed — and with one hell of a story to tell!

Sounds a lot like my 21st birthday party at the ol’ Banana Joe’s Sports Bar & Grill in the Strip.

Another beloved nightclub of yore, The Electric Banana in Oakland, is now an Italian restaurant called Zarra’s. I’m pretty sure it’s the only place in Pittsburgh where you can eat stuffed banana peppers next to a gladiator helmet, Frank Sinatra’s mugshot and a suit of armor.

If all of this information makes your head spin like you chugged a bottle of 99 Bananas Liqueur, you’re not alone. While I was researching this story, local historian John Schalcosky had me up to my eyeballs in banana lore while my sides were (banana) splitting from laughter.

Schalcosky is president of the Ross Township Historical Society and the West View Historical Society and founder of The Odd, Mysterious & Fascinating History of Pittsburgh, an online resource for yinzer weirdness through the ages. He’s both the best and worst person to talk to, especially if you’re a trivia nerd like me, because the conversation could go on for years.

Upon my arrival at West View HUB, where Schalcosky hosts genealogy workshops, movie screenings, Curiosity Club meetings and artificial intelligence seminars for seniors, he handed me a stack of old newspaper printouts. The century-old stories detailed everything from the Strip District explosion to the fruit’s ties to organized crime that included at least two “Banana Kings.”

We gleefully geeked out over banana factoids and other Pittsburgh peccadilloes for more than 3 hours before I finally had to force myself to split.

At 46, I ain’t no green banana.