The Quiet Storm expands to a full-scale restaurant

Usually, you have to pick one or the other: Be all things to all people, or make your appeal so specialized that your target audience will have no choice but to accept you.

Somehow, the Quiet Storm on Penn Avenue in Friendship/Garfield does a good bit of both. First of all, it's a coffeeshop -- no wait, it's a music venue that sells coffee. And tea and milkshakes and smoothies. So it's kind of like a juice bar, except without a huge emphasis on juice. It's an art gallery, too. And it's also kind of a general hangout for the younger demographic slice of Pittsburgh's arts, activist and literary communities. Oh, and now it's a full-time restaurant.

But Pittsburgh already has all of those things, in one form or another. So it's significant that the Quiet Storm has specialized as a vegan (no meat, no dairy) place -- with a few non-vegan, cheese-laden vegetarian options.

The first thing you notice isn't the sign, which is a graffiti-styled wrought iron affair that's unfortunately a lot less eye-catching than it should be on graffiti-covered Penn Avenue. You notice the people sitting at outdoor cafe tables. As this long-decayed strip of Penn Avenue between Bloomfield and East Liberty starts to turn around, it's the foot traffic generated by adventurous establishments such as the Quiet Storm that give it a push.

Inside, the Quiet Storm is dominated by a huge, roughly rectangular bar in the center of the room. One wall is almost all windows, one wall is a makeshift gallery space for local artists, one functions as a giant bulletin board for upcoming shows, and there's a performance stage along the back wall. Mismatched tables are arrayed wherever there's open space -- one is even made from an old door -- but you can grab a couch or easy chair for serious relaxation.

It's just hard to be pretentious in Pittsburgh, so the tattooed punks, hipsters and students who tend to inhabit the Quiet Storm are a pretty laid-back lot. Maybe the well-selected indie rock on the stereo just puts people in a good mood. It's not really happy music, but when TV on the Radio follows My Bloody Valentine on the hi-fi, the head-nodding is contagious.

The Quiet Storm has always served food. But the success of the multi-course, fixed-price Tuesday Night Supper Club is probably what's behind the recent, confident menu expansion.

The Cubano ($7) takes the spicy pressed Cuban sandwich in a completely new direction. It substitutes tempeh -- a protein-packed Indonesian soy-based food with a nutty, mushroomy flavor -- for the usual pork and ham. Cheese and long-cut pickles round it out, then it's pressed on grilled bread.

The QLT Club ($6) is a towering double decker with "bacon" crumble, lettuce, tomato and aioli (or mayo). Nobody's going to mistake these dry little crunchies for bacon, but the wonderful garlicky aioli more than compensates. The Sunflower Wrap ($5) is simply one of the most unusual sandwiches in the city. Carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, bean sprouts and sunflower seeds are infused with peanut-ginger dressing and packed into a flour tortilla.

Carrot & Honey Soup ($2 a cup) was the featured soup of the day -- a thin, light, pureed soup with a pale orange color and the barest hint of honeyed sweetness.

If you feel like you've wandered into unknown territory without a map, you can always fall back on the timeless bar-food staple Cheesy Breadsticks ($4), which have mozzarella melted between two long, thin slices of garlic bread, with a cup of chunky marinara sauce on the side.

Even though the Quiet Storm uses an old-fashioned milkshake machine, there's nothing traditional about the Chai Milkshake ($4.50), which turns the sweet, spiced Indian milk tea drink into a thick, creamy shake. Another standout among the dozens offered is the Midnight Brazilian ($3), a fizzy concoction of seltzer and white chocolate.

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The Quiet Storm

Hours : 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays through Wednesdays; 7:30 a.m. to midnight Thursdays; 7:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Fridays; 9:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Saturdays and 9:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays

Address: 5430 Penn Ave., Friendship

Phone: (412) 661-9355