Bob C.
Yelp
I LOVE the office and we detoured a good 15 min out of the way, on the way to Philadelphia, bypassing other Office landmarks that we could've seen, because...let's face it, this is probably the most iconic. The problem is, outside of the chalkboard looking sign in front, there's no real reason to come here...other than to say you were there.
We looked online and it said the place opened at 4, had a dining area and the reviews weren't bad. We then looked at the menu and figured it'd be good for us and the kids. We arrived to a bowling alley in a dumpy area of town (at least around the alley it is). Saw no sign of it, this is a fail for the alley and Poor Richards. We hid our valuables and went in.
It's 4:35 and there's no hostess immediately seen. The bar tender, a short, white haired guy behind the bar, with tattoos that just couldn't really care less. Finally he says "kitchen isn't open till 5." I scramble to think about what we're going to do because we detoured a bit on our way to Philly after driving all day. He says "you could go to the game room in alley and come back". So we go to the alley and let the kids bowl a few games. The alley was pretty nice and the kids had a blast. We go back to PR after playing a game. It's 5:30 at this point.
We do the same thing, stand there waiting. There's more people at the bar and the same bartender says "you have to seat yourselves." Ok, no problem...but no menus. So we get menus off the guy and sit. We figure out what we want and I notice only the bartender and another guy who looks like a kitchen worker are there. The bartender, after awhile tips us off "you have to order at the bar, we don't have a wait staff."
Because of these unknowns it's around 6 now and other people at the bar who came in after us ordered food. Well, that put us 3rd or 4th in line, for their sole kitchen worker. My wife and I kept it simple (for speeds sake, we needed to go and we'd already burned 1.5 hours, I mean who goes to Scranton for a vacation?). We ordered BLTs and a small cheese pizza, at the bar, for the kids. We get 4 drinks in plastic cups, that we serve to ourselves, from the bar, lol.
Another 45 min to an hour went by. Kids are really antsy at this point and we're all starving.
Food comes out, sandwiches in baskets and pizza on a tray. We're from buffalo, so we don't eat sandwiches or pizza with silverware but our 3 year old asked us to cut the pizza a bit smaller. We go back up to the bar, ask for silverware. No response he just walks into the back and gives us one of those bagged plastic knife fork things...yah! It's got a napkin in it sealed in it too! Now we're cooking!
Sandwiches were good, it's a BLT but my autistic daughter wanted some and she noticed congealed gooey stuff in the waves of the bacon so she wouldn't eat that. This was after the pizza came out and when I tell you my daughter LOVES pizza, she loves it. She's 5 and limited verbal and not picky with pizza at all but she said "I don't like it" in a very panic'd voice. This is really unusual for her.
We had some bagged up strawberries for her in a cooler, I get them for her. We eat and I'm a fat kid who loves pizza, so I decide to help my 3 year old (who eats anything) polish off the rest of the pizza. It quickly becomes apparent to my wife and I why our pizza loving daughter wouldn't eat it, let alone hated the smell of it.
They cheese on the pizza was AMERICAN CHEESE! Who does that? It has to be the worst pizza I've ever had. If you ever come to buffalo, it's joked that our gas station pizza is better than your best pizza place's pizza, but I've traveled everywhere and have had a lot of pizza (from Vegas to Washington State).
Long story short, this place is a dive bar. They should stick to just serving booze. It's not a bad place but it's dark and you can still smell the smoke coming through the wood and paint from when they still allowed smoking.
It's really not worth running out of the way for unless you're younger, don't have kids and have all the time in the world to waste. It's funny because the show kinda gives the same vibe. Like that it's not a great place but if it's convenient and you're depressed, go there.
But hey, I can say I went there now. All I got was a lousy shirt (they were out of the color I wanted)...and a photo.