Schiff’s Marketplace in North Scranton remains closed after an electrical fire in a freezer door Sunday night caused smoke damage throughout the store at 3410 N. Main Ave., a spokesman said Friday.
Employees are still clearing out and cleaning up after the fire incident, and it’s unclear when restocking can start and the store might reopen, Schiffs spokesman Dave Bellso said.
The Schiff’s Marketplace website also states the Scranton store will be closed until further notice, but the Forty Fort location of Schiff’s remains open.
The incident occurred Sunday night around the 6 p.m. closing time, when a night crew on duty discovered an electrical filament in the door of a freezer caught fire, Bellso said.
“It didn’t cause a lot of damage, it was restricted in the shipping dock area, but the smoke and the soot (from the fire) got passed throughout the store,” Bellso said. “Thank God our night crew was there.”
All perishables exposed to the smoke had to be disposed, while canned goods are salvageable but must be cleaned, he said.
“You’ve got to disinfect everything and throw out anything that was exposed. It’s a bad situation,” Bellso said. “We’ve been working 24 hours around the clock to clean everything.”
The store is not able yet to restock meats and also will have to pass inspections before it can reopen, he said.
Schiff’s also serves restaurants in the area, and the Schiff’s in Forty Fort is helping ensure those deliveries are made, he said. Employees at the Scranton location also have been contributing much time and effort to getting that store reopened, Bellso noted. And a steady stream of customers unaware of the closure in Scranton have continued to show up daily, only to have to be turned away, he added.
“It’s a truly local business and a family business,” Bellso said. “The hardest part is there are so many people who keep going to the store.”
According to a history of the corporation posted on the Schiff’s website:
Morris Schiff founded the business in 1945 as a small store on Penn Avenue, and it operated for 24 years servicing local hotels and restaurants with wholesale food and meat.
In 1969, when confronted with new federal regulations in the industry, Schiff decided to close the business, which at that time had four employees — a manager, bookkeeper, meat cutter and driver.
Alyn Scheatzle, a young meat cutter from Duryea, bought the company from Schiff and it became known as Schiff’s Restaurant Services Inc. Under Scheatzle, the Schiff’s name became a household word in the Scranton area, as well as in the restaurant industry.
In response to growth, Schiff’s relocated for more space to 3410 N. Main Ave., which previously was the Kleinberger Pickle Factory. In 1974, Schiff’s opened the first wholesale cash-and-carry under federal U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection. “Here the public could shop shoulder-to-shoulder with the wholesale food customers,” the website says.
New departments were added over the next several years, including deli, bakery, smokehouse, and fresh fish and produce; but HRI (hotel, restaurant and institutional) remains the backbone of the business. Employment grew to 110 full-time employees, 20 supervisory personnel and 25 part-time workers.
Schiff’s in Scranton on Friday, July 18, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRPAHER)
Schiff’s in Scranton on Friday, July 18, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRPAHER)
Schiff’s Marketplace logo (IMAGE PROVIDED / COURTESY OF DAVE BELLSO)
Schiff’s Marketplace logo. (IMAGE SCREEN COPY FROM MYSCHIFFS.COM)