DONALD BETTS AND SHAQUALA SWINTON-BETTS WITH ONE OF THEIR SONS, DONTE BETTS, AT THE NEW “PAIR CHARCUTERIE,” DOWNTOWN AT 201 SMITHFIELD STREET. (PHOTO BY ROB TAYLOR JR.)
Leaders at The Greenwood Plan have a plan to make The Pitt Building, on Smithfield Street, Downtown, a Black mecca. And now that they’ve “bought the block,” the New Pittsburgh Courier has learned exclusively that they’ve secured their first storefront tenant since they acquired the building in December 2023.
PAIR Charcuterie is now open at 201 Smithfield, on the corner of Smithfield and the Boulevard of The Allies, next to the Cricket cell phone store. Its grand opening celebration was held, Friday, May 17, and almost 150 people of pretty much all ethnicities came out for the celebration of the newest Black-owned business in Pittsburgh.
But more specifically, Downtown Pittsburgh.
CURTIS MILLER OF HEIRS, LLC, A BARBER SHOP ON FRANKSTOWN AVENUE JUST BEFORE LINCOLN AVENUE.
PAIR Charcuterie will be the place one finds high-quality cured meats for sale, along with various cheeses, fresh fruits, nuts, coffee, lattes, lemonades, tea, grilled cheese, pastries and more. Current hours of operation are weekdays, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The space is also available for private events. Online orders can be made at pairpgh.com.
However, through all the balloons, fanfare, live music and the hugs and high-fives, it’s hard to not only run a business, but make it profitable. And for many African American small businesses, just getting off the ground is tough.
“My husband wasn’t even convinced,” owner Shaquala Swinton-Betts told the Courier, speaking of her husband, Donald Betts.
REMARO RUSH PICKS UP SOME OF THE FOOD…
Downtown Pittsburgh has been a point of discussion for the past few years, especially with the city trying to deal with finding shelter for the homeless population Downtown.
WTAE-TV (Channel 4) reporter Sheldon Ingram, who is Black, featured an exclusive story on May 13 that showed how those at the Downtown Neighborhood Alliance were busy working to improve conditions for the homeless in Downtown.
Since at least late in 2023, a number of those who were homeless were either hanging out or even sleeping just outside The Pitt Building’s property, but things are improving by the day.
“We dealt with a little bit of vandalism, some drug activity. We’ve dealt with a lot just being down here in this short period of time,” Shaquala Swinton-Betts told the Courier, as she’s been coming to her location Downtown in the past few months preparing for the store to open. She said she even had to deal with racial slurs written on the windows.
“Even still, I’m really passionate about trying to make a change in our community,” Shaquala Swinton-Betts said. “I want to be a leader and set the tone for other entrepreneurs who really want to take this step. It’s transformative. I think it’s an opportunity to change the landscape.”
TONI NIXON, ENJOYING THE CELEBRATION…
Jeremy Waldrup, President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, said the nonprofit organization awarded PAIR Charcuterie with a Project Pop Up grant to help get the small business going.
“We love to see PAIR Charcuterie here on Smithfield Street,” Waldrup told the Courier at the May 17 grand opening. “The energy that she (Shaquala Swinton-Betts) brings as an owner and just the high-quality service that we’re anticipating is very much appreciated.”
PAIR Charcuterie is in that unique location where it can easily be seen from the well-traveled Boulevard of The Allies as well as Smithfield Street.
“It’s about leveraging the 90,000 people who come to work Downtown every day,” Waldrup said. “The 6,500 people that live in Downtown every day, giving them options. We’re going to work with PAIR Charcuterie to hopefully introduce them to every corporate business in Downtown and have them catering their events. We’ve been using her (Shaquala Swinton-Betts) for a few months now to cater our in-house lunches, and everyone’s blown away with what she brings to the table. It’s something new for Downtown.”
MELVIN HUBBARD EL PRESENTS A PROCLAMATION TO SHAQUALA SWINTON-BETTS
Shaquala Swinton-Betts was raised on the South Side, graduated from Carrick High School in 2004, then left town for the HBCU Lincoln University, 50 miles from Philadelphia. She graduated from Lincoln in 2008 before going into the finance industry in cities like Bos ton and New York, and even the European country Portugal. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, she was in Portugal. As she tells it, she hurried up and pretty much caught the first plane back to the States before the President at the time, Donald Trump, shut down the U.S. borders.
Back in familiar territory, the Betts started their own real estate company, SDB Realty, LLC, and are in the works of having a few homes available to local residents.
During the grand opening celebration, Melvin Hubbard El, senior community adviser to Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, presented Shaquala Swinton-Betts with a proclamation.
“It’s a credit to a sister who had a vision, did something about it, in a way that will benefit not only Downtown but our community,” Hubbard El told the Courier.
Khamil Bailey, executive director of The Greenwood Plan, told the Courier that “the grand opening of PAIR Charcuterie marks the progression of the plans we have set in motion here at The Greenwood Plan. We set out on a mission to create space, opportunity, and access for Black-owned businesses in Downtown Pittsburgh and we are doing exactly what we said we would.”
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