Tavern manager's book tells Squirrel Cage tales

Pittsburgh has its share of landmark taverns, but few can boast of having their own historian.

Jan Cavrak recently realized she has accumulated enough stories during her 32 years of toiling at the Squirrel Hill Cafe to fill a book. So she began writing one.

Cavrak, the tavern's daytime manager, is working on a tome chronicling the venerable Forbes Avenue haunt, and many of the colorful characters who have passed through the place affectionately known as the Squirrel Cage.

"It's a good bar that always seems to attract interesting people," said Cavrak, 60, of Swissvale. "That's why it's exciting for me to come to work every day. There's usually a surprise at some point."

In its infancy, the Cage catered to the mill crowd, opening its doors at 7 a.m. to accommodate weary steelworkers who had just completed the overnight shift.

That changed decades ago. Dimly lit, smoky, but sporting a convivial atmosphere, the place long has attracted a crowd of neighborhood regulars, blue-collar workers and Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh graduate students.

The Cage seems to leave an indelible mental stamp on patrons. Its Facebook fan page boasts nearly 300 scattered members who keep tabs on the bar from as far away as South Korea.

Christopher Schmidt, 44, of Regent Square recently used the Facebook page to peddle prints of his painting of longtime evening bartender Bill Nagel presiding over a typical weeknight crowd.

Schmidt, who manages the prepared foods department at the Bryant Street Market in Highland Park, has been a regular at the bar for about 20 years.

"What I like about the Cage is that it is a great place to have an intelligent conversation," he said. "There is a particle physicist I sometimes talk with. One of the cooks is a disturbingly talented chess player."

In addition to characters such as those Schmidt mentioned, Cavrak said the book will prominently feature colorful former Cage owner Ron DeLallo. He gained notoriety for occasionally commenting on society's failings via large handwritten signs in the front window.

After DeLallo died of cancer in 2004 at 52, his family sold the Cage to Rodney and Patty Oliverio of Upper St. Clair. The couple wisely decided not to mess with success and have left the bar largely unaltered.

Although Cavrak has plenty of her own Cage stories to tell, she realizes she doesn't know them all. So she placed a small sign near the bar's familiar red front door inviting patrons to share their own tales.

"That part of the book will be called 'A Page of the Cage,' " she said. "I hope to hear from people about why they started coming in and why they keep coming back."

Cavrak said she has had discussions with a potential publisher. She realizes she isn't penning a possible best-seller; she'd be content if some of the many people who found their time at the bar memorable decide it deserves a place on their bookshelves.

Schmidt seems like he's her target demographic.

"Books, movies, politics, history, philosophy — it's all at the Cage," he said. "Why go anywhere else?"