Frequent Ross Park Mall visitors can be expecting a new pop-up clothing store just in time for the holiday season. The family-owned-and-operated Steel City Brand is making a brief appearance at the storefront previously occupied by Hall Jewelers. The retail space is located near the mall’s play area for children and next to Sinful Sweets on the lower level. 

Steel City Brand is locally owned by married couple Brandon and Carly Grbach, who started this business over a decade ago. Their designs are original and focus on telling stories of popular hometown heroes not only in Pittsburgh, but throughout the country. They work with another local business, Ink Division, located in an old steel mill in Braddock, Pa. Ink Division employees take the mock-ups of Steel City’s design and print them on large amounts of blank t-shirts for them. When a batch of shirts is ready to be released for the public to purchase, Steel City’s Warehouse Team, which operates in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, picks them up to later distribute them to the three stores. 

In the summer of 2017, Steel City opened their very first storefront location at 625 Smithfield Street in downtown Pittsburgh when then-Mayor of Pittsburgh Bill Peduto visited the store on the day of the grand opening to welcome them into the downtown community. In May of 2022, the second Steel City storefront opened in the Streets of Cranberry Plaza. The brand then extended into the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, standing along the thriving Walnut Street two doors down from the popular local bakery Prantl’s. 

Steel City Team Lead of the downtown location Grace Balzer is looking forward to the brand’s expansion.

“I’m really excited for our holiday store to open in a mall,” Balzer told The Uproar. “I think it will bring us great traffic and really get our name out in the North Hills area.” 

If owning three retail locations isn’t enough, the Grbachs also are the founders of Maxine’s Coffee, conveniently located next to the Steel City storefront in the Streets of Cranberry. The coffeeshop is named in honor of Brandon’s grandmother, who he said was “never too busy to have a cup of coffee and share a moment.”

Steel City’s Ross Park Mall pop-up opens today. 

“We’re really looking forward to growing our brand,” Larnerd said. “We’re also hiring and looking for those who are available on Black Friday and on weekends.” 

Once the holidays conclude, Steel City will move out of the storefront, as Starbucks plans on taking over the space and completing an entire makeover starting January of 2024. However, the company continues to search for new permanent locations across the Pittsburgh area to expand the stories they tell through clothing to an even bigger audience.