SCRANTON, Pa. — In downtown Scranton, three friends came together to open a pop-up rooftop bar. It is located on the top floor of the historic Oppenheim building on Lackawanna Avenue. One friend owns the building, one makes the food, and one makes the drinks.
A lot of the historic beauty has been preserved over the past century, but it's now home to newly renovated apartments and a pop-up rooftop bar called the Roof at Oppenheim.
"That lot of people have been in before but not in this capacity. It's funny being in the kitchen and hearing people walk by and being like, 'Wow.' Almost every person is like 'This is wild, how is this here?' So, it's really exciting," Chelsea Manganaro said.
Three friends came together to open the rooftop bar for the summer. One owns the building, one specializes in drinks, and one specializes in food. They didn't want this space and these views to go to waste and decided they could put their talents together to make it happen.
"The menu is like a tapas-style but also sharable, so it's something that you can have a conversation and eat without needing to sit down and cut it and get messy."
Manganaro owns Nearme Yoga and Nearme Cafe in Moosic. She created the menu with the atmosphere in mind. It's all light fare and food that's easy to eat outside. And the place is entirely outside, which means it relies heavily on the weather cooperating. But it also means perfect views of the sunset each night. The bar was built to face the setting sun.
"It's fantastic; it's definitely one of the coolest spots in town, period. The vibe up here is just extraordinary. Being five stories up, there's really nothing else like it in this area," Brendan Karolchyk said.
And that's where the original idea came from—to offer something unlike anything else in Scranton. For now, the Roof at Oppenheim is operating as a pop-up bar, but Manganaro and her partners say they are taking it day by day and hope it can become a permanent spot.
The Roof at Oppenheim is open every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through at least the end of the summer, weather permitting. If they can, they'll keep it open through the fall, too. Ideally, they want someone to take it over permanently, along with the commercial space that is currently available on the first floor of the building.