I never expected to make an episode of its Pittsburgh about Millvale, but I just dropped off my income taxes in the North Hills and was driving south on Babcock Boulevard, which eventually becomes Evergreen Avenue.

You get to a fort where you can bear left and stay on Evergreen.

Sort of skirting around Millvale or bear right on the North Avenue, heading into the Millvale business district.

I decided to go right thinking.

I don't often get to Millvale, and if there's a convenient parking space, maybe I'll stop at the French bakery.

Millvale is an unassuming borough just outside the Pittsburgh city limits, but it's got an incredible French bakery where you can get stupendous baked goods.

They can make you believ you're not too far from Paris.

I thought maybe I treat myself well.

One thing led to another, and a story I planned to shoot in McKeesport had to be canceled.

And before I knew it, I was finding lots o interesting things in Millvale.

I was watching people make candie and talking about turtle soup.

I was looking for music an found out about the hobby shop and the Lincoln Pharmacy, with its world famous diner and people surviving the flood.

All of a sudden, I was putting together a program I wanted to call The Joys of Millvale, but I just have half an hou and you can't put a whole town in a half hour.

We're going to look a just a few of the many reasons you might like Millvale.

I know there are many more.

It's Pittsburgh, and a lot of other stuff is made possible by the Buell Foundation, serving southwestern Pennsylvania since 1927, and by PNC celebrating Pittsburgh's past, present, and future of the PNC Legacy Project exhibit in downtown Pittsburgh.

So let's star at that bakery on North Avenue.

It's called Jean-Marc Chatellier French bakery.

People remember John Marcs.

They don't know the last name.

Like, if you go somewhere else.

That's, that French bakery in Millvale or John Marc's.

That's it.

John Marc gets here before dawn most days.

He was rolling out dough when we arrived one Tuesday, about 7 a.m.. So that's the French rolling pin.

That's the American one.

Actually, I like this one better.

But I'm from Brittany.

Next, in a tiny little village on the northwest coast, about half an hour from the ocean.

This multi-layer doug is for the simple, flaky treats that some Americans call elephant ears, although they're also known by their French name.

Palmiers that's a big French classic, breakfast pastry.

They're very tricky to make, but I've been making them long enough now.

John Marc came to America in the 1980s, worked on Cape Cod, and for years in Los Angeles, and he married a girl from Shaler who eventually convinced him t move here and open this bakery.

She did push me and push me and more and more and more and more and and I say, it's not going to work.

It is not going to work.

She said, it will work.

And then I said, okay.

There always seem to be 5 or 6 tasks underway listening for timers, running to get things out of the ovens.

Look at that.

The business opened in 1992 for sale only at first, but soo with the retail shop up front.

It was a surprise in Millvale.

While a lot of people ask me what I'm doing here, y'all.

But actually it's a very good location because like when when I was doing my wholesale business, she took the map of everything in the county.

Millvale is exactly in the center, and people will travel.

They'll definitely travel.

We have people that come from Ohio for his croissants.

They'll call me and ask me to put them aside because they're on their way.

They love and stuff.

Everybody does.

The stuff is really good.

Cindy Sikorski lives right around the corner and has worked for Jean Marc for over 15 years.

My favorite thing is the cinnamon croissant.

It's just my favorite this year.

And John Marc says I eat six of them a day, but that's not true.

That' what he tells all the customers, because they're always the first ones that are gone.

And he always tells them that's because I eat cinnamon croissants.

If you made that in France, you wouldn't sell one zero.

Why?

The French people don't like cinnamon.

As a young man, John Mar did an apprenticeship in France to learn how to make all these stupendous baked goods and those skinny little V shaped things.

They've become beautiful Palmiers.

All right.

Look at that.

I get an A plus today, and he makes killer croissant.

But then I mix it up.

You have to.

You have to, go with the flow.

You know, it's not all fun.

That's why my business got says American and European pastries.

Because we make everything.

You know, like today we don't have brownies, but we sell a lot of brown.

Lots of, along with, we have the lady logs.

We sell so many lady logs.

But for the past few years, some of the biggest selling items here are the multicolored, many flavored little almond cookie sandwiches known as macaron.

Sort of cousins to macaroons.

There's macaroons and macarons.

We make macaroons also, and I love them.

There's two holes for the macaroons and one for the macaron.

But when they come here, it's Millvale.

They just call it the.

Just call it the.

The French macarons.

That's it.

It's whipped egg whites wit sugar, almond flour and sugar.

That's all there is in them.

It's gluten free, but it's very important.

There's some technique to to mix the egg whites.

That's why it's very difficult to make.

Everybody has their own little tricks.

And I won't let me know which.

Of course, flavors and colors are added.

And although they are remarkably uniform in appearance, Jean-Marc makes them all by hand.

Carefully piping up the dough as if he were a machine.

But he know exactly how long to bake them, and how long they have to sit before you can attempt to pu the filling between two cookies.

And he pays special attention to the little ragged bottom edges of each cookie.

When you look at it, there is the feet you see that you feet there.

That's what you know.

It's a nice macaron.

That's what people judge in France.

Look at the feet.

I know I'm the only one to make the real, true French marc in Pittsburgh.

So that's why that brings a lot of people to Millvale.

Just for those little.

Those little buggers.

Though I think people find lot of reasons to come to Millvale.

Just across the street and a few doors down, there's a yellow brick structure that serves several purposes.

A lot of people come here and they're trying to find the Pamela's restaurant, and they're confused that it's inside a pharmacy.

People here in the community call the business the Lincoln.

I'm going to the Lincoln to get a prescription, or I'm going to the Lincoln breakfast.

So Jennifer Cohen here oversees this hybri half drugstore, half restaurant.

The restaurant officially called Pamela's P&G Diner.

P is for Pamela.

G is for Gail.

I continue to call it the soda fountain, but most people don't kno what a soda fountain is anymore.

And through the years, we've expanded and expanded and expanded the pharmacy.

And my sister Pam, from Pamela's restaurant, Pam and Gail.

I asked them about 15 years ago if they would manage the soda fountain and come in and put in their menus.

They are the chefs and the family, and it's their food that sometimes attracts prominent out-of-towners.

We've had a lot of famous visitors here.

I gues the one that we're really known for is Michelle Obama coming here, and it was during the G-2 summit, that she actually came and had breakfast here open since 1928.

The Lincol has become a Millvale landmark, thanks largely to the Cohen family, including Jennifer.

I asked my father if I could learn about the business, and he said, if you want to do that, and I've been here ever since, and I'm third generation here and the pharmacy business, and I love it.

I have a lot of photos.

In 1968, Millvale was 100 years old, and my father was president of the Millvale Centennial.

And he helped put together a centennial bookle full of town history and photos.

This part of the world was first known to Europeans as Girtys Run after the stream, named for the Girty family that included the notorious traitor Simon Girty.

Millvale is situated along Girtys Run just before it flows into the Allegheny River.

In 1853, a small stee mill was built near the river, and the mill and the beautiful valley or Vale of Girtys Run eventually combined to create the name Millvale in 1868.

People have been finding things to do here ever since.

If you're on North Avenue, you may notice a white bench that says relax with a hobby.

I think it may be the bes sidewalk bench in Pennsylvania.

It's outside the hobby shop called Esther's, founded by Esther Miller.

That was my mom.

Yeah.

1938.

She started here because I'm a depression kid.

And my father left when I was a month old, so she had to do something to feed me.

I got tired crying.

It took me six years or seve years before she listened to me.

That crazy.

She opened a store to feed us both, and I got stuck with the place after she died.

She stiffed me with it.

She won't get him for that.

We'll get a nurse on here.

Yeah.

Pontiac goat.

Does that sound all right?

Yeah.

That's okay.

I'm only going to hit you up for, like, 20 bucks.

Is that good enough?

Yeah.

Hobby shops are such an extinct business in today's world.

The only competitor I have is the internet.

Well, I had a question between, like, the the double ones and the single ones.

You're used to being 28 of us in Allegheny County, and now there's three having two.

If you're thinking eventually getting a third train, definitely go with the single one.

I see what you're saying.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that helps answer some questions.

I'll do some thinking now.

All right.

I are allowed to think.

So what exactly is it that Bob Miller sells in this old hobby shop?

Hobbies?

How can I describe one product in here?

There's, you know, 5000 different products in here from a, rocket ship to, an antique train to, tell me something else, guys.

There's a million things.

I said thousands if they, So.

Yeah.

You know, in other words, it's what's called detailing in, miniature.

The n scale model railroading stands for nice scale.

Purists will tell you it's nine millimeters between the rail, but it stands for nice.

Like H0 is half a Vo gauge.

But there are people that think it just stands for horribly oversize two.

Now, depending on your attitude and Bob's mood, if you're fortunate, you may get invited to see the N scale layout in the basement here.

No, it's just done by what's called the steel time and Scalers this way.

And it's a group of about eight people that enjoyed doing model railroading.

This is awesome.

Now eventually it's going to be around the whole basement.

So Bob can hel you find an enjoyable activity that may be surprisingly rewarding.

All this calcium.

And I still enjoy doin it, because there's not enough of people in today's world to realize the enjoyment out of being creative.

So you can relax here with a hobby, get advice from Bob.

Find treasures.

If you have any money left, you might consider walking down to Grant Avenue to another cool store.

Attic records walk in and you know what they sell here.

Records and CDs.

Music of all types from every genre, every era.

Bob bond helps his dad, Fred run this family business and can explain how things are organized.

Like, we try to keep them the newest things or the newly restocked things here.

And then as we add things in there, we take them out of there and put them up her or just in the regular sections.

So sometimes things you have t look in a few different places, just for the simple reason that we just don't have the spac to keep everything in one place.

We opened up in November 1980.

My dad started it and originally it started as baseball cards, beer cans, and records, which at that time it was up the street, probably about a mile or so.

And it was a lot smaller place, which we outgrew that in about six months.

And then came down here and started with just the one store front.

And since then we've expanded in the four store fronts.

You're looking for Hank Williams.

We specialize in everything.

That's our problem is we try to have everything that people want, whether it's something that just came out this week or whether it's something from the 1920s.

We still sell a lot of seeds, but more and more and more every day.

The vinyl is becoming the thing that people want.

I'll never get tired of it.

I, I love it so much.

I, you know, come to work early in the morning before we ope and I stay later after we close.

Also, we try to keep prices reasonable.

You know, to where people can come in, you know they see what they're getting.

And it's things that may be a little bit more affordable.

While we were shooting outside the attic, we happened to meet a young man named Jeremy Fallon, who's grown up around her and who appreciates the murals painted on the attic.

Well, as I walk past, I always look at them.

I like the clear skies and the 3 or 4 dudes.

The four dudes on their do their, No, actually, no.

Those are the Beatles.

I only see them when they're old.

Well, young Jeremy was willing to give us a little list of some of his favorite spots around town, including Scott's Barber shop.

I always go to to get my haircut.

You got actually got a snake that's dead in a jar.

I always look at it.

Sometimes I get free haircuts because I'm like, my dad knows them so much.

What else does Jeremy like?

Element church, that's where I go to church.

Right across the street.

Yetters, it's my favorite, plac to get my candy and stuff.

order myself some ice cream, vanilla, my favorite.

Yes.

Yetters is a Millvale landmark owned and run by Ed Car.

Everybody calls him Butch and his wife, Arlene.

Yetter car is a combination of candy, ice cream, deli, lunch counter.

That's enough to keep you busy.

We open December 13th, 1950.

We were a convenience store that made our own candy and ice cream.

They've always had loyal customers like Harry Delmore.

I was born and raised here.

Whenever my mom.

Yeah, they'll come over here.

The first ice crea and candy store was farther up on North Avenue, where the signs still say Regis Steedles.

Family changes caused Arlene's father to come here to Grand Avenue and found this store, while his brother's family stayed up at the other.

They did their thing and we get our team.

We made our own ice cream They made their own ice cream.

They make their own candy.

We make our own candy.

I mean, this town have two candy stores, and, and like, now it.

And everybody in Millvale knows that.

Yetters it still makes their own candy in the rooms at the back of the store.

That's where we met Judy Warrick and Patty Cerny as they were working on the candy assembly line.

We cover everything in chocolate, but basically it's it's a bottom machine.

And without that, you have no bottom.

So your see.

Daddy puts the pretzels on, they come down the belt, and then they go through the chocolate, get coated and they come through on the bottom.

So it's called the bouncer takes the excess, chopped it off.

Then it will come through the drying tunnel.

And then I take them off and put them in the boxes or bags or whatever.

We make, this scene may remind you of a famous I Love Lucy episode.

When you first start here, i seems like it's going that fast.

That's what they call us.

Me and her, Ethel, Ethel and Lucy.

That's what they call us.

You just have to get used to working with it.

Do that.

With that.

Everything's good.

Everything.

Well, I love the turtles.

Our turtles are awesome.

That's my favorite raisin clusters.

I really like raisin clusters.

I like, Caramel.

I really like the caramel because he makes them so creamy.

These are, chocolate roses.

And, they are.

We're going to have them for Mother's Day.

We have another down a little bit.

We're working towards Mother's Day.

There's that sort of wonderful energy here that seems to be crucial in a small family owned business.

It's it's in your blood.

You work hard, you work harder.

Because I guess because its yours.

I love this place.

I really been here 40, at least 42 years and I really enjoyed.

I met so many people and they just been so nice.

And my dad told me we would like, I don't know, he died for some years ago, but our dad told her Yetters will out live Wow I'm pretty doggone popular.

But there's none left.

Long as we can stay healthy, we'll keep doing it.

But it's what I really do.

Enjoy it.

We've been lucky.

Oh, we're all lucky tha Millvale is full of surprises.

You know, I haven't even mentioned Saint Nicholas Churc on the hillside near route 28.

In this church are the unusual and amazing murals painted by Croatian artist Maxo Vanka.

People come from all over the world to see these works of art and mass is still celebrated here on Saturdays at six.

Now over on Lincol Avenue, musicians of many sorts from all ove make their way to Mister Smalls, a theater, recording studios and video production facilities in the buildings that once were Saint Anne's Church on Grant Avenue, in what was formerly a funeral parlor, there's now an exotic bird store called Pretty Birds, run by a guy named Don Blosser.

We do boarding, grooming, we sell food.

We sell toys, cages and birds.

Oh, you're so beautiful.

That is.

That is a Caique.

I love people, and I love my birds better.

Birds better than people.

That.

Right?

So.

Yes.

So.

Yes.

Don't make a liar out of me.

Okay?

That's a good boy.

Down by 28.

There's a red brick building that used to be a brewery.

And just a short block away, there's a new structure that houses a new little business.

We met Steve Bordeaux there.

The name of the business is Dry Log Brewing Company.

It was started in 2009.

Basically, we're a brewery.

We're going for the old, Belgian monastic style.

But we mix it up, we kind of throw in some German, some European influences.

The United Kingdom, everything is done here.

The brewing, the bottling, the Kegging, and actually the serving, the beer.

It's all done in this one small area.

They've named one of their beers Simon Girty, after the turncoat whose family's name is on nearby Girtys Run.

Millvale Connections, and if you spend a day in Millvale, you may decide to make a connection with this place.

It's called rear bar, bu it's actually a restaurant.

Yes.

And why do people keep coming to Grant bar for shrimp?

For homemade pies, for friendly service.

Nice atmosphere.

Food is our specialty.

One is shrimp.

We have a marinated steak.

Which number?

Two seller could deliver 90 spaghetti club sandwiches.

We got the whole works.

We've had turtle soup for 70 years.

That's one of our staples.

Turtle soup.

Fresh turtle soup.

That's Frank Rosenberger, his family started all this, and they're still involved.

Open in the first week of October, 1933.

My dad had just this bar.

He would open up at four in the morning, and he would have a steam table right here behind the bar.

And my mother had a, a kitchen upstairs, and she we had a dummy elevator.

The only way you get the food down was to a dummy elevator.

And, And it worked.

She made chicken upstairs and nets grew and grew.

And all the time the rooms and our kids owned it.

There are now some new co-owners, longtime employees, including chef Rory Ben, who offered to show us how they make their popular fried shrimp.

We're kind of backwards.

Everybody else cut some.

From this side.

We come the other side.

Butterfly.

Mike.

The trick is get the flour down inside there.

You get the bowl, your hand right into the crevice and push just enough to you hear a crack that keeps a nice and big.

I'm a believer that we're probably the one of the first restaurants in the city of Pittsburgh to serve shrimp.

You see the little shimmy?

There's a little shimm when you pull up down into the.

It's the only thing I can say that it changed in the last 50 years, but we used to use log for shortening, and now we're not a log.

But they still come out beautiful.

It comes out golden brown, just like you see here.

You got a dip.

It is a sauce.

And we make ourself.

It's crispy.

It's not greasy, tender, tasteful.

And they come in every day for our shrimp.

Yes.

And Frank comes in early every day to I make pies every day.

He's here every morning at six till ten making pies.

My, coconut cream pie.

Pittsburgh net magazine named it the pie in Pittsburgh.

Banana cream, chocolate cream.

Fresh apple pies.

Yeah.

And everybody want to know while I'm working.

And I tell them I don't.

I am not working, I am, I'm retired.

It's it's my hobby.

I love to do what I do and I do it good feel about it.

Get fresh store apple, fresh apples.

I go out to store goes and buy them and they get them from New York.

Yeah.

And this is just a pie that we do everything the, the hard way but the right way.

You know what I mean?

I jus know that grant Bar is probably one of the best classicall Pittsburgh restaurants around.

But all these older businesses in Millvale have stories, and some of the best ones are about the floods here.

The O four was the worst flood we've had.

That was worse than the 36 flood.

September 17th, 2004 I was in Millvale days one two by real big events.

It came really quick.

I was upstairs in my office.

Somebody ran up the steps and said, oh my God, there's a tidal wave coming down the street.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Girtys Run, Girtys Run is righ underneath here.

When he came in, I was walking in the.

I water up to my knees.

I said, maybe it's time to go.

And we're standing here with all the merchandise on the floor, trying to keep our balance.

I knew when the water was over the parking meters, we were in trouble.

People don't realize that a flash flood.

The water comes bellowing down the street.

That's what happens.

We help take stuff out of the cellar while the water was rising.

There was five feet of water out there.

The water was higher than the counter is 16ft from the basement up.

The water was about four foot in here.

It's up underneath, right underneath that shelf.

But that high the we had four foot of water all through the main stores.

We lost millions of records, millions of CD's.

When the water went down, we were shocked to come down and see, oh, we saw that.

We came down here and saw what we saw.

It was just.

You just wanted to cry.

Everything was gone.

The was covered in mud.

I like to say we put that on our shows and we picked up hammers.

We had to rebuild everything from scratch, tear down all the walls, tear out the floors.

And people just would.

They would stop with the food, have to open.

They made you feel like you had people put money in our mailboxes.

We did what we could do and we worked until we slowl got it back to one piece again.

The bar is the only thing left from the flood.

Before the flood, everything else is new.

The soda fountain.

Was i still the only original piece?

And when it comes down to it, it's the community.

It's the people that work with me.

I'm very, very fortunate.

For us, we were pretty doggone lucky with people that helped and who did.

It was all my workers.

We were closed the yea we lost an entire candy season.

We're closed for eight months, and then it took us years to rebuild the stoc and all the customers came back.

There is a resurrection afterwards.

I think it brought the community together.

We really count on each other' strengths to get back together.

Oh, it was really something.

It was terrible and trying.

But now even the tales o survival are part of the charm of this place called Millvale.

If you start downtown, you go on.

Route 28 was the first town Millvale accessible.

The downtown Lawrenceville.

Everything is right here.

It's actually a good neighborhood.

Nobody.

There's no killings here.

We all root for each other.

We all help each other.

I used to deliver papers to almost everybody in the in the town, because it's still a town that there are still a lot of independent businesses I couldn't wait to get done, to get to get the letters to get it, get like that cluster.

That's a cute little town.

And I just feel like, it's me, it's me.

I like it here.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's great.

Millvales Okay.

It's Pittsburgh, and a lot of other stuff is made possible by the Buell Foundation, serving southwestern Pennsylvania since 1927 and by PNC celebrating Pittsburgh's past, present and future at the PNC Legacy Projec exhibit in downtown Pittsburgh.