Marketplace turnover will bring back face familiar to Scrantonians

Borys Krawczeniuk, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
Updated ·3 min read

Jul. 31—Peter Cosgrove, who operated a popular Scranton restaurant and bar years ago, will open a breakfast and lunch spot in the Marketplace at Steamtown.

Cosgrove said Monday he hopes to open Downtown Cosgrove's on Sept. 1.

"I think Scranton is on the upswing, and I've always been a Scranton person," Cosgrove said. "My family's been in the hospitality business since 1860. My great-great-grandfather ran the Cosgrove House in West Side and great-grandfather ran the (Hotel) Casey and my father owned the Glider (Diner). I have it in my blood."

Cosgrove operated Cosgrove's Clubhouse and Tavern on Green Ridge Street for more than a decade before closing in January 2009 as the Great Recession plunged the restaurant industry into a huge decline.

The restaurant will open about the same time Geisinger unveils the second phase of its 83,000-square-foot musculoskeletal and sports medicine center on the first and second floors of the mall's western wing. Marketplace operations director Anthony Cali said Geisinger is scheduled to cut the ribbon on the second phase Aug. 31. A Geisinger spokesman confirmed the date.

"We are excited," Cali said. "Things are happening here."

Cosgrove's will replace Revello's Pizza and Cannoli Bar on the first floor of the marketplace's center, across from Electric City Aquarium & Reptile Den. Revello's lease expired Monday, Cali said. The business closed last week.

Since the pandemic, Revello's opened sporadically because of problems finding adequate staff, but he's sad to see them leave, marketplace owner John Basalyga said.

"They're wonderful people," Cali said.

Revello's owner Pat Revello said the restaurant was open in the marketplace for eight years. With its flagship restaurant in Old Forge, another in Kingston and the business producing partially baked pizza for 33 supermarkets, it felt right to close the marketplace location, Revello said.

"It was a little bit out of the way of our other locations," he said.

Revello's wasn't the only marketplace restaurant to close lately. The Food & Fire Steamtown BBQ Depot in the Marketplace at Steamtown closed last week, said Melissa Black, manager of the Food & Fire BBQ Taphouse at the Shoppes at Montage in Moosic.

With the closing of the grab-and-go location, which had a smaller menu than the full-service restaurants, Food & Fire will look to expand its catering services, she said.

"We just decided on a different path with that growth," Black said.

Basalyga said Crunch Fitness attracts thousands of people monthly to the marketplace and many others from the first phase of Geisinger's center, but restaurateurs seemed reluctant to commit to opening there until the second phase arrived and the Scranton Art Haus movie theater opened.

Now, they're all about to be open at the same time.

"Everything's really coming together now," Cali said.

David Singleton, staff writer, contributed to this story.

Contact the writer:

bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com;

570-348-9147; @BorysBlogTT on Twitter.

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