Created by Zach Neil and Josh Balz, The HouseNoir is preparing to open in Pittston with theatrical steak service, candlelit Gothic design, craft cocktails, and one of the region’s most intriguing new dining concepts…
The HouseNoir is preparing to open its doors in downtown Pittston, but if its creators have their way, guests won’t simply be walking into a restaurant.
They’ll be stepping into a carefully constructed world.
Located at 73 South Main Street, The HouseNoir describes itself as a romantic Gothic steakhouse blending American, French, and Italian culinary influences with elevated comfort food, premium steaks, handmade pastas, and craft cocktails. Long before serving its first official dinner, the concept has already become one of the most talked-about upcoming restaurant openings in Northeastern Pennsylvania, fueled by a steady stream of cryptic teaser videos, candlelit imagery, and a simple tagline that appears repeatedly across its marketing:
“Romance Isn’t Dead.”
For many restaurant openings, a phrase like that might read as little more than clever branding. But The HouseNoir arrives with two personalities behind it whose careers have been built around creating atmosphere and cultivating devoted followings.
Zach Neil is known nationally for immersive hospitality concepts that blur the line between dining, entertainment, and storytelling. As the founder of Hallow Global and the creator of Beetle House, he has spent years building restaurants where setting and narrative are as important as the food itself.
Josh Balz has taken a different path, but one that feels surprisingly complementary. Through ventures like Noir Dark Spirits, The Strange and Unusual, and the Ritz Theater, he has become one of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s most recognizable curators of the unconventional, creating spaces that invite people to step outside everyday life for a few hours.
The HouseNoir appears to be where those philosophies meet—a restaurant built as much around atmosphere as appetite.
While much of the menu remains under wraps, the early details suggest a concept that places as much emphasis on anticipation as execution. The restaurant’s social media teasers reveal very little about what diners will actually eat. Instead, they focus on mood: candles flickering against dark walls, Gothic architecture, crimson lighting, roses scattered across tables and carefully staged scenes that feel closer to a film trailer than a restaurant advertisement.
The message is clear. Before guests ever open a menu, they are meant to feel something.
The reservation calendar offers another clue about what Neil and Balz are building. Reservations are currently handled through Yelp and available through The HouseNoir website. Rather than offering broad blocks of availability, the calendar shows carefully staggered seating times and a limited number of reservations each evening.
Current availability appears concentrated on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Whether that schedule expands remains to be seen, but the early reservation structure suggests a dining room designed around pacing and atmosphere rather than volume.
The restaurant’s food remains largely a mystery. No full menu has been released publicly, but the details that have emerged hint at the same theatrical instincts found throughout the rest of the concept.
The clearest example is a featured offering called “Flesh & Fire,” a tableside steak service for two built around a 36-ounce ribeye. Promotional videos show the steak suspended, fire-finished, and carved before guests. It is a dramatic presentation, but also an illuminating one. The HouseNoir does not appear interested in separating dinner from performance.
Early descriptions of the restaurant reference cathedral-inspired architecture, antique church elements, fountains, gardens, and dramatic design details intended to transport guests somewhere far removed from the ordinary rhythms of downtown life.
The imagery released so far supports that vision.
Candles glow beneath deep red light. Dark velvet and black furnishings dominate the room. Oversized Gothic chairs rise behind dining tables like thrones. The atmosphere feels less inspired by a traditional steakhouse than by a lavish Victorian dream.
For Balz, the project represents an especially interesting next chapter.
For years, he has been one of the region’s most visible creative entrepreneurs, building businesses that embraced the unusual and the theatrical. The HouseNoir may be his most ambitious hospitality project yet because it attempts to bring those sensibilities into a full-scale restaurant setting.
Pittston is a fitting stage for a project like this.
Over the past decade, the city has quietly become one of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s most interesting dining destinations. Restaurants like The Refinery helped establish downtown as a place worth traveling to, while Rikasa brought a polished rooftop experience and cocktail culture to Main Street. Alongside a growing collection of independent restaurants, bars, and specialty food businesses, they have helped transform Pittston into a destination that regularly draws diners from across the Wyoming Valley and beyond.
The HouseNoir enters that landscape not as an attempt to redefine it, but as one of its most distinctive new additions. Its Gothic aesthetic, theatrical presentation, and immersive atmosphere give it an identity unlike anything currently operating in the city.
There is still much we do not know.
The full menu remains unreleased. The cocktail program is still largely a mystery. Much about The HouseNoir remains hidden behind velvet curtains and candlelight.
But perhaps that uncertainty is part of the appeal.
In a dining culture where nearly everything is photographed, posted, and dissected before opening day, The HouseNoir has managed to preserve something rare: curiosity.
Pittston is about to get one of the region’s most distinctive new dining destinations.
Whether the food ultimately proves equal to the atmosphere remains to be seen. For now, the reservation calendar suggests that plenty of diners are willing to take that chance.
