The Lenten fish fry is a popular tradition in many Catholic communities. In Pittsburgh and the towns around it, people looking for fish fries between Ash Wednesday and Easter have a very modern tool to find their fish fix — an interactive map. "I like to say that the fish fry is an adventure. And that truly is whether you're after, like, a good fish sandwich or excellent sides, or if you're just like, really curious about seeing the inside of a menu that you might have never been in before," said Hollen Barmer, Founder of the Pittsburgh Lenten Fish Fry Map. Although the Catholic fish fry has long been a part of western Pennsylvania tradition, popularity really skyrocketed in 1966 after the Second Vatican Council announced that not eating meat on Fridays was optional, except during Lent. And today it has expanded outside of the church, with fish fries being held at fire departments and even restaurants. "80 meals was our first fish fry. Now we're up to 4 to 500 on a Friday. And that's a lot in 2 hours. That's a lot," said Frank Randza of the Allegheny Elks Lodge #339, which hosts an annual fish fry during Lent. With their map, Barmer and Code for Pittsburgh aim to keep the tradition going through innovation. So each year a volunteer coding session is held to build and update the fish-fry map. In 2023 they mapped 193 venues, said Barmer. "People are connected to their phones. They're connected to their smart devices. They want to be able to look and instantly see, where can I get a fish sandwich? Where can I bank? Where can I do anything? So I think it's a great resource," said David Nickel of the Swissvale Fire Department, who helps manage their annual fish fry. "We host the data through the project I manage at Pitt," said Bob Gradeck, a co-organizer for the Pittsburgh Lenten Fish Fry Map and product manager with the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center. "So every year there's an archive of data that we can kind of build off of and look back and see how much this ride culture has grown in Pittsburgh. And it's grown a lot, I think, thanks to Holland." Gradeck believes this project gives community members a way to contribute to the culture, which has become "an important tradition here in Western Pennsylvania and other other places around the country too." "It's a Pittsburgh thing, especially because it's tradition coexisting with innovation, which I think is kind of a theme in Pittsburgh," said Barmer. "We have we have the very old juxtaposed with the very new. If with the fish fry map, we can get people to those culinary traditions and hook that up, then we have succeeded."