Pittsburgh Willy’s, the award-winning hot dog shop located inside Chandler’s Market Square antique mall, unveiled a larger, more private dining room Saturday with the help of a well-known Valley fine-dining chef.
The move, which has been in the works for months, caps a hectic summer for owner Randy Walters (pictured above). The Pittsburgh native suffered a detached retina in May. While recovering from eye surgey, he experienced chest pains.
“It was on Father’s Day,” Walters says. “It felt like the proverbial elephant was sitting on my chest. I had to get a stent put in.”
Saturday was Walter’s first full day back at work – and he got help in the kitchen from Brandon Crouser, the former Atlas Bistro chef who’s currently looking for a new home for Crudo, the acclaimed Scottsdale restaurant he co-owns with chef Cullen Campbell.
Crouser is a frequent Pittsburgh Willy’s customer, calling hot dogs “the ultimate comfort food.”
“Brandon’s working on some new menu items for me,” Walters says. “I also want to have a monthly all-exclusive dinner with a different guest chef each month. Brandon is planning the first one.”
The new restaurant space, a separate room off the open-court mall with its own access to the parking lot, allows Pittsburgh Willy’s customers to come and go  after the mall closes at 4 p.m.
“I’m thinking of staying open until at least 9 o’clock from Wednesdays on,” Walters says. “But it’ll be dictated by what my customers want.”
The space, which has eight tables plus an L-shaped bar, boasts all the Pittsburgh Steelers memorabilia from the old space, which Walters opened in November 2008, plus a lot more that he still had at home.
As for his new health-conscious diet, Walters says his cardiologist still allows him to eat an occasional hot dog.
“He said, ‘Don’t be stupid about it.’ I can have one or two a month,” Walters says. “It was a wake-up call for me.”
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