Moonlit Burgers to open 4th location in East End

Moonlit Burgers continues to expand its empire as the restaurant announced the smash burger is headed to the East End.

After officially opening a location in Sewickley earlier this month, Moonlit Burgers plans to add a fourth location to the Pittsburgh burger scene in Garfield.

“We’ve been looking out in this area for a while,” said Mike McCoy, co-founder of Moonlit Burgers. “It’s kind of the perfect situation for us. We really love the East End.”

Moonlit teased the new location on Penn Avenue in an Instagram video on Friday.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MoonLit Burgers (@moonlitburgers)

Moonlit Burgers opened its first location in Dormont in 2021, inspired by an idea McCoy and executive chef Derek Stevens had during the pandemic. The restaurant quickly gained popularity for its signature smash burger — made by flattening a meatball-shaped beef patty on the grill — and expanded to Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood in 2022 and Sewickley on Sept. 9.

The new Garfield location will occupy the former Primanti Bros. site, which abruptly closed in June after nearly a decade in business. Despite the previous tenant’s closure, McCoy said the site’s proximity to ongoing development projects in the Garfield Corridor — including the new Whole Foods — makes it an attractive location.

McCoy noted that the space was already set up for a restaurant.

“We’re not changing the space physically,” McCoy said. “We’re making it look like Moonlit Burgers … there’s not a whole lot of things to do other than cosmetic.”

Moonlit Burgers in Garfield will be able to seat about 80 people inside, with the option of an additional 35 to 40 outside on the patio depending on weather. The new location will also feature Moonlit’s largest bar, with seating for 15 people at a time.

“We feel like we can get this done by the end of the year and open,” McCoy said.