STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
On this election morning, we have a story of politics - not presidential, but the politics of daily life. While talking with voters, we drove by the U.S. Steel mill in Braddock, Pennsylvania, and we noticed a new restaurant across the street. Greg Niell was at the bar.
What you drinking?
He ran his finger down the menu to show me.
That is...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Cold-brew martini.
GREG NIELL: Yes.
INSKEEP: A cold-brew martini.
NIELL: Yes.
INSKEEP: OK, what's - is it gin, vodka? What's the...
NIELL: Vodka...
INSKEEP: It looks like beer, to be honest with you.
NIELL: It's awesome.
INSKEEP: The cold-brew is coffee, which gives the martini that look. Niell lives a few miles outside this town but knows the story of Braddock, Pennsylvania.
NIELL: This was a booming community at one time...
INSKEEP: Wow.
NIELL: ...I mean, just booming.
INSKEEP: The steel plant once employed thousands, and Niell worked for U.S. Steel as a welder. Now that the workforce has declined, much of Braddock is vacant houses and empty lots. Greg Niell has adapted. He now sells software to local businesses, and the town is slowly adapting, too...
NIELL: Things are going to start happening.
INSKEEP: ...As this new business shows. The new bar is run by the same people who operate a brewery down Braddock Avenue and who came over to talk - Alaina Webber and Matt Katase.
MATT KATASE: We are the co-owners of Braddock Public House.
INSKEEP: Katase grew up far from here, in Hawaii. He was drawn here to the Pittsburgh region by one of its great economic strengths - its universities. On campus, he started home brewing and developed a business plan for a brewery.
KATASE: There was this mayor, this guy named John Fetterman, who came on campus and talked about, you know, Braddock and this urban frontier and kind of pitched Braddock as, like, this arts haven.
INSKEEP: He found a business partner, opened his brewery and then found Alaina, who grew up in Pittsburgh.
ALAINA WEBBER: My dad's a contractor, owned his own business. I'm a first-generation college student, so first person in my family to go to school.
INSKEEP: Their new restaurant, of course, sells beer from the brewery, along with dishes that represent both owners - the native Pittsburgher and the Japanese American.
KATASE: Essentially, Pittsburgh classics with a Hawaii-Japanese twist because every culture has their item wrapped in dough. Like, it's pierogi in Pittsburgh. It's gyoza in Japan.
WEBBER: So you get both here, side by side.
KATASE: You get both here.
WEBBER: We have a really specific commitment to difference as a company. The team is stronger when people are really different.
INSKEEP: John Fetterman, the mayor who encouraged them, is now a U.S. senator. He also owns this building and lives upstairs. Braddock has played a small role in the presidential campaign. As we've reported, both candidates oppose the plan to sell U.S. Steel, including the mill across the street, to a Japanese firm. We discovered that many locals think the sale might be fine. And as a Japanese American, Matt Katase finds it all amusing.
KATASE: One of the biggest topics this political session is a Japanese company buying...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
KATASE: It's just - it's wild. I...
WEBBER: You can't make it up.
KATASE: You can't make it up.
WEBBER: That's for sure.
KATASE: I - sometimes I...
WEBBER: We didn't plan that part.
KATASE: We always said, depending on what happens, maybe we'll drink some nice Japanese whisky over here and bring people together over a beverage.
INSKEEP: The owners of the Public House say they would rather not announce how they're voting. They have vendors and distributors across the political spectrum. But they say they are politically engaged because running a business demands it.
WEBBER: Everything we make is based on international commodity pricing - grain, wheat, hops.
KATASE: Aluminum.
INSKEEP: Tariffs would affect you.
WEBBER: Yeah.
KATASE: Significantly.
WEBBER: A hundred percent - significantly.
INSKEEP: They are also touched by government regulations, like a tweak to Pennsylvania law that allowed breweries to sell directly to consumers.
WEBBER: I look for the policy, right? And that's just not part of the conversation right now. It's not what we're hearing in a lot of media and news is - what is the policy? - because that's what affects us as business owners.
INSKEEP: Today's election will decide who gets the next chance to make the rules. The Braddock Public House is open Wednesday through Sunday, which is to say the five days after the election, whether you drink in sorrow or celebration.
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