Duquesne Supply Co. Provides Local Lift to PIT’s Retail Row and to Makers

A new retail store in the heart of the airside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport demonstrates the airport’s commitment to supplying travelers with a selection of products that celebrate Pittsburgh.

The Duquesne Supply Co. is named and themed after Pittsburgh’s iconic Duquesne Incline, the funicular railway that carries passengers up and down Mount Washington, where they can ooh and ahh at the across-the-rivers views of the Downtown skyline and the North Side. The incline plane’s red counterbalanced cable cars have been doing that almost continuously since 1877, making them a fundamental part of the local lore and landscape.

The store design echoes the antique pressed copper and stained-glass details from the ceilings of the cars, which are depicted in sepia photographs on the side walls, as well as on a video screen on the storefront. In the back, behind the register, is a massive video of that view.

The shelves, racks and tables are loaded with local flavors, including Dark Chocolate, Orange Peel and Almonds; Salted Caramel; Gold Hazelnut Praline; and Raspberry and White Chocolate from Tabbara Chocolates.

The artisan chocolatier’s display includes a photograph of owner and maker Nancy Tabbara and a QR code that directs shoppers via smartphone to her website, where they can find a brief overview of her story and her company. Like the airport itself, it’s both Pittsburgh and global.

Nancy Tabbir Tabbara came to the United States in 2007 with her husband, an interventional cardiologist, from their native Lebanon. Before leaving the war-torn country, she’d worked as a banker. By the time they moved from Washington state to Pittsburgh in 2013, Nancy had put herself on a path to turn her love of baking with and eating chocolate into making it, inspired by her in-laws’ chocolate shop in Beirut.

In the 1950s and ’60s, that shop was a popular destination for prosperous Lebanese people to celebrate some of life’s special moments. Chocolate wasn’t as ingrained in what was then known as the “Switzerland of the Middle East” as it was in Europe, or as it is almost everywhere now, but it was still considered a glamorous gift.

Alas, the civil war changed everything, forcing the shop to move from downtown Beirut to much simpler location.

Despite the challenges, Saad Chocolat, with “Saad” meaning happiness in Arabic, still exists and is still run by the family. Nancy visited it several times to learn the techniques and the recipes before opening her own commercial kitchen in 2018 in a rented space in a former factory in Pittsburgh’s North Point Breeze neighborhood. It’s not far from where she and her husband and two teenagers live.

Her handmade chocolates reflect her heritage and her personal taste with a prevalence of nuts as well as ingredients such as candied dates and citrus peel.

She also crafts a range of items, including dainty, exquisitely speckled and colored Easter eggs layered with ingredients such as milk chocolate orange ganache with a coriander-flavored hazelnut/almond praline.

“You want that tasting experience. You want texture and you want good flavor,” she says while giving a tour of where she works every day. Dressed in a hairnet and brown apron, Nancy often relies on a single helper.

She keeps the kitchen at around 65 degrees. As she talks, liquid chocolate continuously flows from a faucet on the machine where she melts and tempers the cocoa butter-rich Belgian and French “callets” into couverture, or gourmet chocolate. It forms the basis of her creations in chocolate, ranging from almost black to golden to white and raspberry.

The workspace contains stacks of molds including — think hollow chocolate bunny — an Easter chicken. She works with a compressor-powered spray gun to apply colored cocoa butter to her designs.

While she’s starting at Duquesne Supply Co. with shelf stable bars, she also creates assortments of truffles and bonbons, including one of her originals, Beirut 1960. The $20 box includes nine pieces.

While customers can sometimes pick up online orders to save on shipping, she doesn’t have her own retail space. She’s delighted to add the airport location with its high visibility to the handful of stores that sell her wares the space.

That’s another part of the airport’s goal – to support Pittsburgh makers and reflect the local community, said Carly Thibault, Allegheny County Airport Authority’s business manager, commercial programs.

“Local is a huge draw for people,” she said as she took a visitor to Duquesne Supply, which opened in March on what insiders call the airport’s “retail row” on the center core between Concourses A and B.

Duquesne Supply is one of 19 new retailers and restaurants being introduced to enhance the experience for travelers.

“It’s that sense of place – that’s what we’re seeking to provide,” Thibault said.

This new store is operated by Hudson, a company well-known for its newsstand/souvenir/convenience stores in airports across the country.

Thibault jokes that Duquesne Supply isn’t all about “shot glasses and key chains,” but in fact, the store sells both souvenirs — with a twist.

The shot glasses — one of an array of items from women-owned love, pittsburgh, which supports more than 100 Pittsburgh artists and makers — are localized with terms such as “nebby.” At least one customer already asked employee Cindy Schwarz to explain what that means.

“It means nosy,” Schwarz says she told the person. “They weren’t from here.”

Keychains are laser-engraved with local terms such as “yinz” and “jagoff” by another local maker, Cox Woodwork, which has its own Pittsburgh-and-not Pittsburgh story.

The company started in 1981 in the Aliquippa basement shop of Benjamin Cox. He, along with his wife and son, Benjamin Jr., and his wife, crafted wooden items that they sold at craft shows. Benjamin Jr.’s son Matt sometimes helped out, but he didn’t like it, so he moved to Texas when he grew up.

Like a lot of Pittsburghers do, he moved back to care for his parents and found himself working in the woodshop with his Dad, “out of necessity to provide for my family” — his Mexican-born wife, Tarah, and their two sons, Esteban and another Benjamin.

“It kind of grew on me,” Matt Cox says of steeping in his Dad’s skills and breathing sawdust. “I realized it’s in my blood.”

For about a year and a half, the family operated a retail store in Bridgeville, but they closed it in January. Matt felt lucky that a customer who works for Hudson contacted him and invited him to send wares to Duquesne Supply.

Those items include Pennsylvania-shaped cutting boards, wine accessories and other products that fit into carry-on luggage, even though the business (which still includes his father Benjamin and son Benjamin) makes furniture and more, some incorporating Latina and Southwestern influences. The shop’s only other retail spot is a booth at the Rogers Flea Market in eastern Ohio.

That’s why Cox was eager to be part of Duquesne Supply. “I thought it was a great opportunity to get a whole new clientele. … We’re just excited about it,” he said.

So, presumably, are the others in the inaugural class of makers, including two other confectioners: Sinful Sweets and Spectrum Fudge, which employs people with special needs.

Duquesne Supply also carries Sarris Candies chocolates, snacks and even milkshakes in a refrigerated drinks case. Hudson already had a relationship with the beloved Canonsburg company and knows how much Pittsburghers and ex-Pittsburghers crave its products.

Steven Anderson, general manager of Hudson, said the company is in regular communication with potential new vendors, including a farm market.

“We’re going to start developing a gourmet food section,” where new products could join those from Pittsburgh Popcorn Co. and OMG Pretzels as well as Scorch Garden, a Clairton maker of saucily marketed hot sauces.

Yet other vendors include garbella (screen-printed apparel, accessories, home goods and gifts),

KloRebel Art Co. (hand-drawn, handcrafted goods), Soyil Candles and Una Biologicals (natural beauty and wellness products).

“It’s bespoke modern gifting,” Thibault says, using another word that some people might have to look up. It means that Duquesne Supply Co. is custom curated for travelers at PIT. “We’re helping visitors understand what Pittsburgh things are.”

Bob Batz Jr. is a longtime Pittsburgh journalist who has had years to learn how to pronounce “Duquesne” — doo-KANE.