J J Banko's Seafood

We have been going to Banko's for awhile. We've enjoyed the food. ($1 lobster tails that are now $1.50) The wait to get in (usually at least a half hour, if you're lucky - sometimes more, depending on the day) can be a nuisance, but we over looked it. The service has always been slow. It takes forever to get waited on. Good luck trying to get refills or anything else. (They need to hire waitresses who know what they're doing, not just for their looks.) Then the food always takes quite some time to get as well. (If they turned the food out quicker, they could turn the tables over quicker, and not have such a wait. - Common sense of the restaurant industry.) However, our last (and final) visit, was the straw that broke the camel's back. - Ordered the shrimp. It tasted like Clorox. (Which bad shrimp will.) Told the waitress, who told the manager. She (the manager, who apparently from what I've heard, is the former owner, and the mother of the current owners?) handled the situation very - VERY unprofessionally. She argued w/us in front of a dining room full of patrons, basically accusing us of only wanting a free meal. It drew the attention of the entire restaurant. If that were anybody else at any other job behaving that way, they would've been fired on the spot. - We've frequented that establishment many times. We've had bad food - over cooked, under cooked, burnt, etc. and did not complain, but when it's poor quality of food that will affect your health, I think that warrants a complaint. On top of that, we waited over an hour to get our food. (We timed it.) And then to get food that's not edible?... - Needless to say we will not be returning. more

This is my favorite seafood restaurant in NEPA! Huge portions! Friendly staff, it gets really busy but it doesn't take that long and... if you want to be in and out you need to get there early! Love there fresh seafood and Iam NEVER disappointed!!! If you ""FINE"" dining you need to go somewhere else, this is a relaxing cool little place with WONDERFUL food...! more

Great food and service. Read other reviews where people said they waited long for food, this was NOT the case with us. We had a large party (8 people), and our food came out fast and hot. Nice decor, just the band in the bar was a bit too loud. Food was great more

My mother and I had gone to check out the seafood. The waitress took our order. We waited 10 minutes for our drink to come to the table and 50 minutes after that for our food to come. When the food finally came the clams were so unbelievably covered with sand it was disgusting we could not eat them. Trying to get the waitress to explain this to her was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. When we finally did find her, all she said was that their main cook was not there. She did not bring it to the managers attention..never took it off the bill. I mean you could actually see gray sand all over the plate. We will never go back and never recommend for any of our friends to go there. Don''t waste your time, energy or money. more

Terrible service. They cater to the bar crowd, but have added a ""seafood restaurant"" of sorts next to it. Absolute dump. Don't take your family there. Rude clueless waitresses, hostess who couldn't care less. Very unprofessional. They need some grownups on the restaurant side. more

My family placed our order and 45 minutes later we had not even received our appetizer. When we asked about our order, our waitress told us to give our order to the busboy??? We had already waited a very long time. The staff did not care one bit. The seafood may be good there, but we will never know. Very unprofessional staff. No customer service skills. Walked out without our meals, will never return. more

my favorite place to go! more