Scranton Welcomes You
The secret success behind the hit television show The Office: they paid attention to a place no one else did.
This past weekend, I was invited to Dushore, Pennsylvania to take part in a fun, interactive, adventurous weekend led by my friend Alexander McCobin and his team at his Dutch Mountain Events property. Alexander is a member of Fearless Journeys, including traveling with us on our recent 3-part trip to Uruguay and Argentina earlier this year. He is a man who travels around the globe frequently, but it was very cool to see the small rural community he calls home. Alexander is the co-founder of Liberty Ventures and Leap. You should look them up. He’s doing great stuff to uplift and empower the entrepreneurship ecosystem!
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I was not sure what path I would take to get to Dushore, PA from Florida. While it’s a beautiful part of the country, it is not easy to get to! I ended up flying from Fort Lauderdale to Newark, New Jersey, renting a car, and driving 3 hours to Dushore.
As I took a closer look at the route I might go, I noticed the opportunity to visit Scranton, Pennsylvania on the way.
This is the town that one of my favorite television shows, “The Office,” was set in.
I was pretty sure The Office was not filmed in Scranton. And upon further research, I was right. Give or take a few shots, the entire series was filmed in California.
But as I researched further, there were in fact places to see in Scranton related to The Office. In fact I was able to visit 5 of them — plus a bonus photo-op with Dwight Schrute.
By the end of this 3-hour experience in Scranton, I think I learned the secret success behind this hit television show. They paid attention to a place no one else did.
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I started my day at Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe. This place is mentioned many times throughout the series including a scene where Michael Scott’s employees debate with him the difference between Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe and Pizza by Alfredo (the latter doesn’t exist in real life). Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe is “the good pizza” and, at the real life location, they embrace this tip of the hat from Michael Scott’s colleagues.
My next stop was to Poor Richard’s Pub — there were many scenes of The Office where the gang hung out here. Again, no scenes filmed in actual Scranton. The real life Poor Richard’s Pub is located inside a bowling alley here in Scranton. While I was able to walk into the bowling alley, the pub itself was closed when I was there (at 2:00 PM in the afternoon). Come back after 5:00 PM to enjoy a pint here just like Jim Halpert did when Roy confronted him here.
The next stop I made was to The Market at Steamtown. In The Office series, this place is simply known as the Steamtown Mall, including this episode where Michael takes the ladies out of the office for a special outing — one that turns awkward, of course.
Today, there isn’t much activity going on at the real life “Steamtown mall,” but the main reason a fan of The Office might come here is to see the famous “Scranton Welcomes You” sign, which used to be on the roadway.
Due to the popularity of The Office, fans were starting to cause safety hazards by stopping off the side of the road to take photos with the sign — which appears in the opening of each episode for less than two seconds. The smart people of Scranton moved it inside The Market at Steamtown — this was probably a good idea for some economic stimulus for a mall that looks like it needs it.
While we only see this sign for less than two seconds on each episode, it’s a reminder that repetition works. What we see often, we remember. That repettion worked so well on some of us that we will even go so far as to park in a shopping mall garage just to go inside and see the sign, now located right outside the mall entrance to Crunch Fitness.
I got back in the car and drove just a half mile or so up the road to the Pennsylvania Paper Company. This iconic building is featured in the opening credits of the office. If there ever was a “real life” Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, this would be it. In fact, for many years they replaced one of the signs at their building with the Dunder Mifflin logo. I didn’t stop into their office (after all, they have paper to print and I didn’t want to bother them), but I have learned they do welcome visitors. So if you’re ever here with some time on your hands, do stop in.
It also seems that that this real life paper company in Scranton, PA is trying to do its best to use “The Office” fame to attract talent to come work for them. Just check out the sign on their building asking if you have what it takes to work here. And then look closer: this is a family-owned business that has been here since 1922. They just celebrated 100 years! That’s incredible — especially considering paper seems to be going out of style in this digital age.
My next stop was to Cooper’s Seafood House. This place is the gold mine for The Office fans for a few reasons.
First, they have great murals on their outdoor walls that include characters from the show. Plus some cardboard cutouts around the restaurant and in the gift shop. Speaking of which, their gift shop is amazing. There are more than enough things to buy here. I took home a Dunder Mifflin t-shirt and a “World’s Best Boss” trophy for my desk. And then I quickly left so I didn’t break my budget buying even more swag.
Cooper’s Seafood has been around since the 1940s and there are tons of non-Office related memorabilia all over their walls. Their men’s bathroom is dedicated to The Beatles and their women’s bathroom is dedicated to Elvis. The place is really cool and you can definitely tell why the character Michael Scott referred to this place as his favorite restaurant. The bar area looks like a place where the gang would all congregate on a lunch hour or even after work.
My final stop of the day was the bonus stop — to visit a big mural of one of the most beloved characters in TV sitcom history: Dwight Schrute. The mural is painted on the side of a wall at the On & On vintage store in Scranton. I wasn’t the only person stopping for a photo here. I met a group who had traveled through here from South Dakota. We swapped phones to take photos of each other next to Dwight. And then I told them how much I love their home state South Dakota, where I’ve been twice.
If you include the hour I spent having lunch at Alfredo’s Pizza Cafe, it took me less than 3 hours to see all of these sites. They were easy to find and they were not that far from each other.
Scranton is a small town and a very blue collar town. Some parts of it looked a little rough. It has probably seen better days. But the people here are incredibly nice. I was shocked how many times people in other cars stopped for me to walk by or even drive by.
A show made in Hollywood could have easily chosen so many places, perhaps even a much bigger, more well known city.
Choosing Scranton, PA seems an odd choice.
It’s not easy to get to. It’s about 3 hours from Philadelphia and about 2 hours from Newark. It doesn’t even seem to be a place most Americans know or that is even “on the way” to some other place. It’s an old industrial town and people here appear to still be working hard and creating value for one another.
There’s one more thing I found interesting.
As we now all know, the writers and producers from The Office picked Scranton as the “location” for their show about a group of employees who worked at the corporate office of a paper company. They could have left it as just that.
Instead, they chose to visit Scranton, get a feel for the real life businesses that had been here a while and incorporate those real-life “locations” into the show’s script. They even have scenes that make the Hollywood sets look a lot like the real life places in Scranton.
That’s a lot of effort and a lot of attention to detail that most viewers wouldn’t have noticed and I assume most residents of Scranton wouldn’t have necessarily cared about.
I’ve watched every episode of The Office a long time ago and sometimes turn on reruns as many of us are prone to do. And so many of us quote it all the time.
“That’s what she said.”
Visiting Scranton gave me a renewed appreciation for the show and brought alive many of the references and Hollywood sets that are based on a real place in “real” America. While I was just passing through on a Friday afternoon, staying here a few more hours — or even a few days — might have done it a little more justice.
The creators of The Office went out of their way not just to make a mockery of the modern day corporate office, but also to embellish about another character: the city of Scranton. It is an ever-present part of the show — and my visit here really brought home why.
When a television show tries to get as close as it can to capturing the reality of real life Americans — as the creators of The Office clearly did — it might lead to more success.
The more we can relate to characters, to an office, or to real life places we might go with our friends, neighbors, and colleagues — the more we might pay attention to what Hollywood is trying to serve us. Cheers and Seinfeld excelled at this too.
Writers and other creatives in Hollywood might do well to follow the formula that the creators of The Office did — by simply creating shows that more viewers can relate to.
There’s a reason Michael, Jim, Pam, Dwight, Angela, Stanley, Phyllis, Kevin, and so many other characters stole our hearts. We might be one of them. We certainly know people just like them.
Many television shows have casts that are typically more handsome and more beautiful than average people. Not The Office. These characters look and act like real people we know. Real people we might work with.
Many shows are set in glamorous locations like New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and Miami. Not The Office. It’s set in Scranton. Most of us have never been there and probably most people reading this never will. But once you do go, you see the great reveal.
The Office was very intentional in its effort to reflect a real place where real Americans live and work. And that wasn’t just a corporate office. They picked a place most Americans can’t locate on a map (without the help of Google). This could be considered “the middle of nowhere,” except there’s no such thing as the middle of nowhere. Everywhere people live is somewhere. It would be more precise to say that the office could be “Anywhere USA.”
The creators of The Office took their own purpose-filled visits there ahead of creating this show. It’s high time we each visit these kinds of places too — even if a television show never makes it famous.
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