Time Warp 1986: Cooper’s Seafood House sails ahead with additions

Time Warp 1986: Cooper’s Seafood House sails ahead with additions

Summer 1986: The Cooper Family, owners of Cooper’s Seafood House, announced something big was coming to North Washington Avenue.

TIMES-SHAMROCK ARCHIVES Owners of Cooper’s Seafood House — from left, John, Paul, Jack and Matthew Cooper — take their new centerpiece, a 26-foot-long, 1,000 pound Styrofoam blue whale, out for a drive on Oct. 13, 1986. Electric City Signs of North Scranton crafted the faux mammal to hang in Cooper’s new dining room.
TIMES-SHAMROCK ARCHIVES Work continues on the ship-shaped addition to Cooper’s Seafood House, Scranton, in March 1987.
TIMES-SHAMROCK ARCHIVES Mark Cooper serves a blackened red fish to his brother, Jack Cooper’s, wife, Angela Menichillo Cooper, on March 8, 1986.
TIMES-SHAMROCK ARCHIVES In the kitchen at Cooper’s Seafood House, Mark Cooper blackens a red fish as his brother, Jack, watches on March 8, 1986.
TIMES-SHAMROCK ARCHIVES Cooper’s Restaurant, 701 N. Washington Ave., breaks ground for an addition on Sept. 3, 1986, with ECI of Clarks Summit as project manager and developer. From left are James Clark, John Cooper, Mrs. Jack Cooper and Mayor David Wenzel.
TIMES-SHAMROCK ARCHIVES Work on the addition to Cooper’s Seafood House, being built in the shape of wooden sailing ship, continues at the North Washington Avenue restaurant in February 1987. The $1 million addition was to add 130 seats.
TIMES-SHAMROCK ARCHIVES Jim Clarke, Angelo Sulla, Jerry Maus, and Angela and Jack Cooper check out the interior mast at Cooper’s Seafood House in Scranton in March 1987. The mast was part of the new ship-shaped addition being built at the restaurant.

The owners worked with a team of 14 architects to bring a 110-foot-long replica ship to the Scranton restaurant, where the “ship’s hold” would offer room for a bar/lounge, dining room with seating for 130 and a gift shop. The ship would connect to the original part of the restaurant via a new, enclosed glass walkway.

After breaking ground on the replica ship that Sept. 4, a replica great blue whale was delivered to Cooper’s on Oct. 13. The whale, constructed by local firm Electric City Signs, was to hang in the restaurant’s new dining room.

Paul Cooper said at the time that he thought of adding the whale to the eatery after seeing a similar replica at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., while on a family vacation. They turned to Electric City Signs to make this idea become a reality, Cooper said, and the company made the whale from 40 blocks of laminated Styrofoam and several layers of newspaper.

Eighteen years later, in 2004, the Cooper family announced another major addition to the landmark restaurant. This time, they decided to build a 45-foot-tall lighthouse connected to a patio deck that was had previously finished in September 2003.

This year marks the restaurant’s 70th anniversary. Cooper’s Seafood House opened at 701 N. Washington Ave. on April 24, 1948.

 

BRIAN FULTON – http://thetimes-tribune.com/lifestyles/time-warp-1986-cooper-s-seafood-house-sails-ahead-with-additions-1.2329327