PENNSYLVANIA MACARONI CO. | PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

The Strip District is known for its weekend hustle and bustle, but I prefer visiting on Monday mornings.

Shop and restaurant owners wave hello as they open their doors. You can smell fresh coffee brewing, feel a gentle breeze as cars whiz by on Penn Avenue and hear a low buzz as the city slowly comes to life. There’s even ample parking.

On May 20, I took a ’Burgh Bits & Bites Food Tour through the Strip, which, according to my guide Marla Rzeszotarski, is the most visited of Pittsburgh’s 90 neighborhoods. We met in the monastery garden of St. Patrick Church, an oasis at 17th Street and Liberty Avenue. Catholics have been worshiping there since 1808.

This tour is one of six featured in our Visitors Guide. Explore the other tours here.

My touring companions were Tammy and Michael Citaramanis, lovely Maryland residents who were visiting relatives in Aliquippa. They peeked through the church windows to see the Holy Stairs, a set of 28 steps that the faithful ascend on their knees. It’s modeled after the original Scala Sancta at the St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome.

Who knew? I didn’t.

As Marla fed our brains with more fun facts, she handed us each a slice of Mancini’s Bakery Cinnamon Swirl bread. It tasted heavenly.

PARMA SAUSAGE | PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Michael’s brother was a food critic for the San Francisco Examiner, so he knows that restaurant hopping is the best way to acclimate yourself to a new city or learn a thing or two about your hometown.

During our tasty, two-hour trek, we stopped at nearly a dozen places to snack and chew the fat with small business owners. We sampled fresh meats at Parma Sausage, marveled at Wholey’s ice machine (it produces 40,000 pounds per day), ate Reyna Foods’ famous chips and salsa, dipped into Labad’s Mediterranean Cafe and Grocery, and slayed a Monster Pepperoni Roll at Sunseri’s. After downing two pastries at Peace, Love & Little Donuts, I was forced to take my complimentary Enrico’s biscotti to go. I could not, however, bypass an on-the-spot cheese pairing at Stamoolis Brothers Co. The beloved market has a 235-pound log of Carbonelli Provolone hanging from the ceiling like a charcuterie chandelier.

LABAD’S MEDITERRANEAN CAFE AND GROCERY | PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Sylvia McCoy, a first-generation yinzer and 2009 Pittsburgh Magazine 40 Under 40 honoree, launched ’Burgh Bits & Bites Food Tours in 2008. Her Swiss father and German mother came to the United States in the 1960s to pursue the American Dream, which they ended up finding in Bethel Park. Although she spent several years living abroad, Pittsburgh lured her back.

“It’s the only place that’s ever felt like home,” she says.

A veteran of the local service industry, Marla has watched the city’s dining scene evolve over the years into a major tourist attraction. I was blown away by her knowledge and neighborliness. Marla and the Marylanders simply chuckled when we passed by stores selling T-shirts insulting rival football cities Cleveland and Baltimore. Mister Rogers would be so proud of them!

REYNA FOODS | PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Marla gave us a lesson on the Pittsburgh Banana Company explosion that rocked Smallman Street on Dec. 17, 1936, exactly 42 years before my birth. I had no clue this cataclysmic event had happened, nor did I know that ripening bananas produce flammable ethylene gas.

As the tour wound down and the Citaramanises and I filled up on samples, we heard —a big boom. It wasn’t exploding fruit, but the Pittsburgh Steeline, a professional drumline, which was celebrating the grand opening of Shake Shack. The popular burger chain now occupies a storefront at The Terminal, a new dining and entertainment complex that was once the city’s produce distribution hub.

The food tours aren’t contained to the Strip. You can take a ravenous romp through Lawrenceville, Brookline or the South Side, head north to Butler County to visit Saxonburg and Harmony or customize your own route. The company employs a small army of guides to lead and feed you. Tours last a bit over two hours and cost $53.