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Did you know there was a Shiz University in Pittsburgh? No, it’s not part of Carnegie Mellon. No, it’s not part of Pitt. It’s in Bakery Square!

Step into Glinda and Elphaba’s enchanting dorm room at Bubble & Broom: a Wicked-inspired pop-up bar! Snap a pic in front of the shining Emerald City, admire Glinda’s pink wardrobe, sit amongst Elphie’s bewitching books, and sip on spellbinding cocktails.

Keep reading to discover the creative process, behind-the-scenes magic, the way-ups, and the way-downs…

If you’ve been a regular at Bakery Square for a little while now, you might remember our last pop-up, The Oasis, where we turned the enclosed patio into a tropical paradise as an attempt to “escape winter.” It was great! But when it came time to decide a theme for this year, and we had all this bright-colored furniture, we were stumped. What theme could we possibly do with this stuff? Giant poppies? Green and pink furniture? A backdrop that strangely looks like the Emerald City? And that’s when it hit us…..Wicked.

But there’s no way the timeline of the movie release lines up with when we wall-off the patio, right? WRONG! After a quick Google search, we realized they’re both in late November. We have something here, people!

Pinterest boards, Amazon orders, Michael’s runs, and about 45 cans of green glitter spray paint later, we were ready to conquer the greatest pop-up that has ever pop-upped.

The goal was to imitate Glinda and Elphaba’s dorm room at Shiz University to the best of our ability, with a few extra mystical touches like hundreds of bubbles and vines hanging from the ceiling…but we’ll get to that part later.

Since the movie hadn’t been released yet, imagining what their room in the film actually looked like was a bit of a challenge. We found ourselves replaying the trailer over and over, pausing on every scene that might reveal a glimpse of the room.

We later discovered there’s an entire Shiz University website that has a 360 tour of their dorm. Definitely worth checking out, but would have been helpful in the early stages of planning. Anways, I digress.

Let’s get into each witch's side!

First off, we’d like to apologize and say “Good luck!” to anyone that’s hosting a “pink” party in the near future because we ran pretty much every store dry of their pink inventory.

Glinda is, at the very least, a maximalist. So we knew we needed to get a lot of “things,” and those “things” had to be pink. Pink shoes, pink flowers, pink perfume bottles, pink suitcases, pink clothes, pink pillows...you get the idea. We had to throw a few books in there too, so Glinda looks studious in front of Madame Morrible. But of course, the books had to be pink.

Strolling through the East Liberty Goodwill with carts full of pink clothes was definitely an original experience, with other shoppers giving us criminally offensive side-eye and the lady at checkout looking at us as if we had three heads. But it was all worth it because Glinda’s room wouldn’t be Glinda’s room without an all-pink wardrobe.

Remember we mentioned earlier about hanging hundreds of bubbles from the ceiling? We weren’t kidding! In fact, at the Bubble & Broom opening party, we held a contest to see who could guess the amount of bubbles correctly. Wanna take a guess? Scroll down to see the answer!

Together, with the help of our dear friend Ryan from Walnut Capital maintenance and lots of fishing line, we strung 702 bubbles! Were you close? Way off? Be honest, did you count?

Of course, Glinda doesn’t have bubbles hanging from her ceiling in her dorm room, but it definitely added a little extra magic to the space!

So, Glinda has a ton of shiz (pun intended) to fill up her side, but Elphaba has a broom and a hat… and that’s about it. How in the world do we make her side as captivating as Glinda’s?

After much deliberation (and coming to terms with the fact that Elphaba’s aesthetic doesn't exactly scream pop-up bar), we decided to go the ~witchy~ route with items Elphaba might have acquired at Shiz—things like spellbooks, hourglasses, lanterns, and plants.

But that didn't feel like enough to capture her magic. We decided to string vines from the ceiling to add an enchanted forest vibe, and hung lanterns to give the space a warm glow. Then, as if the universe was on our side, we found a rogue fireplace mantle, which we turned into a cozy little reading nook—because what’s more witchy than curling up with a good spellbook?

The biggest challenge of all. We started off with about 10 cans of green glitter spray paint, thinking surely that would be plenty to cover two wooden panels. Boy, were we wrong.

We had pretty much every staff member on a manhunt for more green glitter spray paint, because one can barely covered a square foot of space. Hardware stores, DIY shops, and craft supply stores in and around Pittsburgh were being raided by BKSQ employees. 

By the time we gathered enough cans, we had made a small army of glitter-covered everything—our hands, the floors, even my favorite white vest became victim of the green sparkle storm. But, after all was said and done, the panels were sufficiently sparkled. Mission accomplished.

And because that just wasn't enough, we started thinking about how we could take the backdrop to the next level. So to top it off, we added a “For Good” neon sign (because, well, emotions), the giant poppies, and a yellow brick road to create the ultimate photo op.

Whether you're a retired theatre kid, a die-hard Wicked fan, someone who has no idea what Wicked is, or just looking for a cool hangout spot, you should definitely check out Bubble & Broom. And we’re not just saying that because we did the d*mn thing. The specialty cocktails are delicious, and we promise you'll walk away with a fire IG post.

Plus, we’ve got some amazing themed events coming up, like Wicked karaoke, brunch, and more! A huge thank you to the Bakery Square and Walnut Capital teams who helped make this vision come to life!