{"id":287423,"date":"2026-09-16T16:28:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/287423\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T16:28:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:28:20","slug":"coney-island-lunch-reopens-in-scranton-after-major-renovation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/287423\/","title":{"rendered":"Coney Island Lunch reopens in Scranton after major renovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A familiar hot dog spot in downtown Scranton is back open with a new look but the same Texas-style wiener taste.<\/p>\n

SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 It’s a familiar walk off Lackawanna Avenue through the front door at Coney Island Lunch in downtown Scranton<\/a>, but once you’re inside, a new place greets hungry customers longing for an iconic Texas-style wiener.<\/p>\n

“And it served us well for like 30-some years, you know, but this is unbelievably a hot dog place. This is a hot dog place,” said Peter Ventura, Scranton.<\/p>\n


\n \"\" <\/p>\n


\n This story continues below. <\/p>\n

Brothers Peter and Bobby Ventura stepped away from the business in 2023, selling the property to businessman John Basalyga with one promise.<\/p>\n

“And I gave Pete and Bobby my word that I would do it the right way in honor to their family,” said John Basalyga, owner.<\/p>\n

While it was well kept, it wasn’t easy. In December of 2024,<\/a> the facade of the building collapsed, closing the street and adding months of construction to an already involved project.<\/p>\n

But Basalyga says it was always going to get done. “It’s small in size, but the scale was like bottom to top, you know, foundations and walls, windows, roofing, like everything was redone in here totally.”<\/p>\n

The hot dog shop now has a neighboring ice cream stand named after Basalyga’s daughter, Raegan, which will open soon.<\/p>\n

Apartments upstairs and plans for a new business next door will cap off what Basalyga says is continued growth in downtown Scranton. “A brand new ice cream parlor, which is a business that has never been in the city before. We reopened Coney Island. Next door, we’re going to have Ross Jewelers moving over from Washington Avenue, and then there’s 10 apartments, and there’s two, so it’s quite a big project when you put all those things together over the three parcels.”<\/p>\n

The Venturas say they are happy to switch from owners to customers.<\/p>\n

“Years ago I’d go around with a coffee cup and a cigar in my hand greeting the customers, and my brother would be yelling at me, ‘You got to make the chili sauce. You gotta make hamburgers. Don’t be talking to the customers.’ Now I could do it now and not have any worries about it,” said Bobby.<\/p>\n

But the banter between the brothers may never go away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A familiar hot dog spot in downtown Scranton is back open with a new look but the same…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-287423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}