Visions of sugarplums, bar food and custom holiday cocktails danced through the heads of those at Lackawanna College as early as the summer.
“Our designer started in July. He started buying stuff on sale after Christmas last year, a lot of ornaments and things like that. But, we started the design process in July, like right after the Fourth of July,” said Kristen McNally, director of the School of Hospitality at Lackawanna College.
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McNally decided to start Misfits, a pop-up holiday bar located at 409 Adams Ave. in Scranton after the school’s last pop-up, Blitzen.
“We wanted something completely different from our previous pop-up, and we just kind of white-boarded it, and just brainstormed different ideas, and just started to come up with different Christmas things and it just transformed,” she said.
Misfits opened Wednesday and will be open Wednesday through Saturday from 5-11 p.m. until Dec. 20. The bar will be closed on Thanksgiving, and children will be allowed to attend until 8:30 each night.
This pop-up will not be taking reservations, but guests are welcome to come in any time during their hours of operation to enjoy the holiday season.
Prepping for the crowds
Students began the fall semester cooking and learning at the school’s restaurant, 409 on Adams. The restaurant’s transformation to Misfits started in October.
“So, this is our students' class time,” said Sara Grande, enrollment, retention and front of house experience manager. “This is still their classroom.”
Danielle Pilotta, senior at Lackawanna College is completing her fellowship at Misfits this year.
For Pilotta’s fellowship, it will consist of running the pop up’s social media, batching drinks and taking on a more of a managerial role.
This is the second year that Misfits is operating in Scranton, and the team at Lackawanna College plans to add new additions to the bar.
“There’s a lot more visual to it this year,” Grande said.
New additions include Bumble’s Ballroom, a completely heated tent, with a bar located on the inside, the Mistletoe & Mischief Bar, which is the improved dining area, and more.
Wanting to add more seating for guests, the goal for this year was to truly expand the pop-up as much as possible.
Misfits welcomed over 10,000 through their doors last year, and plans for a bigger crowd this upcoming year as well.
Students gain real world experience
Those involved in the everyday running of Misfits consists almost exclusively of students, who use this as an opportunity to gain real life experience.
“So, you have to know that if they’re coming here to school here in the School of Hospitality, that they have a love for the hospitality industry, which typically means that you’re going to be dealing with customers all the time,” said Grande.
Students are told from the start how to deal with customers, with different classes in their curriculum including a table service class.
“Each student here has to do a rotation in the kitchen or the front of the house so they know how to deal with customer service and customers," she said.
Students at Lackawanna College have the opportunity to immerse themselves in Misfits as early as their first semester, regardless of whether they are pursuing an associate or bachelor’s degree.
“We also give them work study opportunities through the college itself,” said McNally, “or if you’re not eligible for work study, you could just come down and apply.”
What to expect on the menu
Misfits will have a completed menu, consisting of cocktails, food and seasonal desserts for their patrons to enjoy.
“We try to rotate the menus every year, we just bring back two or three of the really popular drinks from last year, and then Allison came up with what I think we have a total of nine or 10 now, so we added six or seven more,” said McNally.
Allison Mayer, hospitality education and enterprise manager at Lackawanna College, is a professional bartender and helped create the menu for this year’s pop-up.
“We had the restaurant the first half of the semester, so kind of seeing what worked and what didn't, what people bought and what didn’t sell that much,” said Mayer. “It’s kind of taking all of that into account while also trying not to go for a fall kind of theme, because we’re a Christmas bar.”
The food will focus on different handhelds, to accommodate for the extra seating this year, since it will be non-traditional tables, like ottomans with wheels and smaller tables.
Age, crowds and how to navigate them at Misfits
Most of the time last year, Misfits had about 500 customers come through the doors on a normal night.
“If I didn’t go to Lackawanna College and I knew about this, I would definitely come here, because there’s a lot of people there and great music choices,” said Pilotta. “When you walk in here, especially when you know what it looked like before, it’s like a whole new world.”
Grande shared how the older generation lines up for a spot at the bar traditionally right when the doors open at 5 p.m., while the younger crowd won’t come in until 8:30 p.m.
“We get great community support for this,” McNally said. “We get people from other businesses downtown, and it’s great, so we also try to funnel them back to those places downtown after we close.”