Cooper's Seafood House

This used to be my favorite restaurant in the Scranton area.  I was very disappointed in the quality of our dinner.  My wife's grilled kabobs had overcooked shrimp and langostinos  and undercooked scallops.  My grilled salmon with crawfish etoufe was "meh".  Key lime pie was OK, but the coffee was just warm and not too fresh.  
Since it was a Friday night at around 7:30 when we arrived, I expected to have to wait awhile for a table.  Not so.  There were plenty of empty tables.  I guess we were not the only ones who feel that Coopers has lost something.

Taking an extended weekend vacation in Scranton, this was one of the kitschy, touristy places I had to visit.  (Especially considering there aren't many places in Scranton that are tourist spots.)  The pirate/fisherman/vintage decor here and the lighthouse and giant octopus on the roof are interesting, but not "omg SO wacky!" that they stand out in a nation full of wacky themed restaurants.  (Kind of like the seashore version of the Rainforest Cafe.)

I ate here for lunch and was generally pleased with my meal.  BF and I shared an appetizer of fried gator legs as neither of us has tried alligator before: it tasted like chicken wings, but with a little more gaminess to the meat.  I was disappointed, however, because the picture on the menu showed fried, sauceless legs, and when they came to our table they were covered in buffalo sauce--basically drowning in them.  I wanted to taste the gator, not bottled buffalo sauce!  My entree, a blackened swordfish steak with wild rice, was MUCH better.  Extremely tasty and perfectly cooked.  BF had the soft-shell crab sandwich and he devoured it.

But the service and atmosphere were definitely less than pleasant.  The carpet smells musty and the air is stale, and all the kitsch on the walls is never cleaned, so dust lingers everywhere.  The waitress was attentive all the times we didn't need her to be--interrupting our conversations to ask if we needed anything--and when we did need refills on our drinks, she was nowhere to be found.

I wasn't running in horror from this place, and my meal was tasty enough, but if I ever do come back to Scranton, I won't come back.  Once is more than enough for this place.

Inexplicably popular with locals.  A few good items on the menu, and a lot of very average but edible stuff.  Most of their seafood is obviously frozen.  
Several competing decor themes, including over-the-top sea fare (never a good sign for a seafood place), including a small whale in one room, along with archive newspapers, an electric train that runs through the entire place, and a display case of old toothpaste (?).  
Most annoying is their birthday policy.  Most restaurants that do this give you a week to a month, with a discount off the entire menu.  Coopers insists on your exact birthday (when you are likely to have other plans) and you are limited to a short list of six rather unappealing entrees.
This is a once-a-year place for us, usually on a birthday if we have nothing better to do, nothing good in the fridge and a power outage at McDonalds.