Former local sports bar to reopen in Cranberry, Pa.

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A local sports bar that recently closed will reopen in Cranberry, Pa. and is still searching for a new Mahoning Valley home.

Youngstown Sports Grille owner Sean Pregibon said Friday that The Sports Grille at Cranberry will open in time for football season this fall at the intersection of Pa. Routes 19 and 228. He said he’s been researching the Cranberry market for the last three years.

“I was always hoping for it to be a second location. Having closed in town, now it will become our only location,” he said.

The Youngstown Sports Grille was open for nine years, spending six years at free standing building off South Avenue in Boardman. Pregibon had leased the building, which was sold in March.

The Cranberry restaurant will feature the same menu and sports motifs with memorabilia displayed from Western Pennsylvania schools and some from Youngstown.

Pregibon said having a Valley location is a priority for him, and he expects to have a final location chosen here by spring or summer of next year.

Pregibon joked that there’s been rumors that he’s going to open in “just about every building downtown,” and said he’s still looking at locations in the city and in Boardman.

He did put one rumor to rest: He is not planning to open a restaurant in the Stambaugh Building where Buffalo Wild Wings operated, because, he said, a long-term deal wasn’t guaranteed.

“This Cranberry deal came along before anything materialized in town, but I was born and raised on the South Side, and my heart is always in Youngstown,” he said.