Behind a door on Walnut Street sits a metal staircase.
A walk up the steps is the only thing between shoppers and Heat Check, an oasis of vintage clothing and specialty coffee. The space above Lululemon is the embodiment of years of work by co-owners Brendan Kelly, 26, Ricky Daley, 26, and their business partners Q Miller-Edwards, 23, and Jett Wasson, 23.
The clothing shop features racks of thrifted shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters and pants. The left side of the shop is taken up by a coffee bar with a menu offering a medley of coffee and non-coffee options including tea, chai, matcha, house pops and hot chocolate.
Kelly, co-owner of Heat Check, said he loves watching new shoppers walk down the store’s entryway hallway and seeing their faces as they discover the room opens up to natural lighting and an entire store.
Heat Check
Kelly and Daley met as early teens in Jefferson Hills.
“We actually didn’t become friends until we noticed we were each wearing really cool shoes,” Kelly said.
The rest was history.
They bonded over their shared love of shoes and fashion. As their friendship grew, their business ideas did, too.
“We’ve been doing this since we were 16,” Kelly said.
The business partners always loved going to thrift shops, estate sales and flea markets. Kelly said they would “hustle for work” at 14 and 15 years old by shoveling snow and mowing lawns to make money for clothing pieces.
After high school, Daley began a landscaping company that Kelly occasionally helped with. Both men attended Community College of Allegheny County South. Daley earned his associate’s degree and Kelly dropped out after about two weeks and threw himself into the Heat Check business.
“We really only put our own money back into the business for the first 10 years,” Kelly said. “We’d take a little to pay our bills and get by, but we just kept reinvesting and reinvesting.”
They eventually opened their first shop in West Homestead, flipping a warehouse space that used to house an auto body shop.
“It was kind of out of the way,” Kelly said. “We were really only focusing on online when we were there.”
Kelly said the business has seen a lot more foot traffic after moving to its new location. Despite having a loyal customer base in Homestead, Kelly called the new spot a “whole other world.” He said he and Daley had made it a personal goal to open a store in Shadyside’s shopping district.
He said there’s a variety of styles entering the store each day. As someone with a self-proclaimed “huge range,” Kelly appreciates all of the different pieces he sees.
“My absolute favorite part about (the new location) is all the complex styles of people that walk in here,” Kelly said. “Everyone — from wearing athletic gear, to really swagged out wearing awesome denim or leather. The mix of styles is something that I’m very excited about because I like unique stuff and that wasn’t always well received online.”
He said he and Daley still visit estate sales, flea markets, yard sales and pretty much anywhere else they’re likely to find new clothing pieces. Kelly said Daley is boots on the ground and does about 80% of the picking for the shop, often traveling out of state for new merchandise. They try to put new pieces on the racks each day.
Kelly and Daley both get to explore their creative outlets through the store.
“I get to express my style on the clothing racks, which is really fun,” Kelly said.
They were able to open their store on Walnut Street on Aug. 23 with their business partners, Miller-Edwards and Wasson, who make up The Boredom Set.
The Boredom Set
Miller-Edwards, Heat Check’s cafe manager and head barista, and Wasson, Heat Check’s head roaster, met during their freshman years of college at Midway University in Kentucky. One night, Miller-Edwards was, in his own words, “running around the halls and making a bunch of ruckus,” when Wasson came out of his room.
“I saw him and I walked up to him and I was like, ‘Hey man you look cool. Let’s be friends,’” Miller-Edwards said. “That was kind of it.”
The two became roommates and sold coffee to faculty and students. When covid hit, the two business partners decided they wouldn’t be returning to school and made the move to the Pittsburgh area.
“My mom grew up in the Gibsonia, Wexford area,” Wasson said. “I came up here a lot as a kid.”
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Miller-Edwards said he read an article that said Pittsburgh is the “New LA” of coffee. They were sold. At the time, the 17 and 18-year-old business partners were operating under a different business name and went door-to-door to cafes and markets to try and host pop-up shops with their coffee.
“We just did pop-ups and were pretty much begging storefronts to let us show up,” Miller-Edwards said. “The sales pitch was ‘we just need an extension cord and one outlet. That’s all we need.’”
Wasson said the pitch was successful twice.
“That was our trial run,” Miller-Edwards said. “We had no idea what we were doing, but we were going to do it.”
They began in an apartment in Green Tree, roasting coffee in their kitchen in a 500-gram roaster.
“No ventilation,” Miller-Edwards said. “We just opened the doors and hoped for the best.”
Despite making sales here and there on their website, they realized they hadn’t given themselves a chance to become professionals and had chased a passion project without business experience. They put their business on pause.
Miller-Edwards gained experience as head barista for De Fer Coffee and Tea in the Strip District, where he met Kelly. Wasson began working for Commonplace Coffee as a production roaster.
Kelly remembered meeting Miller-Edwards and thinking to himself, ‘who is this kid?’ He said he wanted to know Miller-Edwards’ story immediately. The two became fast friends and introduced their business partners to each other. Soon after, the Boredom Set and Heat Check became partners, and what started as a pop up cafe in Homestead, became a permanent fixture in Shadyside.
“We showed up with the machine one Saturday and just kind of never left,” Miller-Edwards said.
The melding of minds
“I love to cook,” Kelly said. “I love to host and I’ve always loved coffee. I’ve always wanted to put coffee and clothes together. I think they work awesome together.”
Kelly worked in the service industry for a bit and decided a few years ago that he wanted to learn about the coffee business to incorporate it into Heat Check. He ended up working at De Fer Coffee and Tea where he met Miller-Edwards.
“Once I met Q, it was almost instant,” Kelly said. “I remember it was my second shift down there, and he was wearing this really cool vintage corduroy hat. His style was awesome and he had all of these sick tattoos.”
“It’s been really fun,” Miller-Edwards said.
Wasson and Miller-Edwards agreed that there are things on the cafe’s menu in Heat Check that they would never think to include on a menu. However, they’ve worked with Daley and Kelly to offer an array of drinks to customers.
“It’s almost like we’re consulting but we’re operating at the same time,” Miller-Edwards said.
They’ve both been pushed out of their comfort zone and have even found drinks they’ve really enjoyed making. Wasson and Miller-Edwards both enthusiastically agreed they’ve discovered an appreciation for the cafe’s “house pop.”
The drink became a house-made cream soda, something Miller-Edwards had never tried to make before. He said it’s become the most fun drink to make.
“It’s been a true collaborative effort,” Miller-Edwards said.