So it's Sunday morning and I'm in Philadelphia about 10 or 11 hours after a great Wizards win over the home 76ers; I've watched Allen Iverson's jersey get hung in the rafters of the Wells Fargo Center at halftime of that same game; and I spent the previous day visiting iconic sights in the first capital city of the United States. Sounds like a full and complete weekend, right? Nothing more to take in before my early train back to D.C., right? Wrong! I couldn't leave Philly without a cheesesteak. It just wouldn't be right. So immediately after checking out of my hotel, I made my way over to the south side to get me one of Philadelphia's original and best contributions to the culinary world. And if it's Philly and cheesesteaks, it has to be Pat's King of Steaks.
According to a combination of fact and folklore, the cheesesteak sandwich as it is known today was invented by Pat Olivieri in Philadelphia sometime in early 1930. There seems to be some debate about exactly how the sandwich was first conceived but there seems to be no debate that Olivieri was the creator. Most stories have Pat owning a hot dog stand with his brother Harry when one day Pat decided to make himself a steak and onion sandwich on an Italian roll (no cheese yet; that comes later). A cab driver apparently smelled the sandwich, asked Pat to make him one and the next day the steak and onion sandwich went viral among cab drivers in Philly and the rest is history. I'm sure they used a term other than "went viral" in the '30s but whatever.
From those humble beginnings, Pat opened his legendary restaurant, Pat's King of Steaks, which now stands at 1237 East Passyunk Avenue and has been owned and operated by the Olivieri family for over 80 years. Who first added cheese to the steak and onion sandwich and just when that happened seems to be less clear, although the Olivieris claiming that one of their chefs added provolone cheese to their sandwiches in the 1940s seems to be the most plausible.
According to a combination of fact and folklore, the cheesesteak sandwich as it is known today was invented by Pat Olivieri in Philadelphia sometime in early 1930. There seems to be some debate about exactly how the sandwich was first conceived but there seems to be no debate that Olivieri was the creator. Most stories have Pat owning a hot dog stand with his brother Harry when one day Pat decided to make himself a steak and onion sandwich on an Italian roll (no cheese yet; that comes later). A cab driver apparently smelled the sandwich, asked Pat to make him one and the next day the steak and onion sandwich went viral among cab drivers in Philly and the rest is history. I'm sure they used a term other than "went viral" in the '30s but whatever.
From those humble beginnings, Pat opened his legendary restaurant, Pat's King of Steaks, which now stands at 1237 East Passyunk Avenue and has been owned and operated by the Olivieri family for over 80 years. Who first added cheese to the steak and onion sandwich and just when that happened seems to be less clear, although the Olivieris claiming that one of their chefs added provolone cheese to their sandwiches in the 1940s seems to be the most plausible.
Today, Pat's is big business, managing to stay open 24 hours per day, seven days a week chopping steak and pushing out cheesesteaks with or without onions and slathered in provolone, American cheese or Cheez Whiz. Its only real competition sits right across the street at 1219 South 9th Street: Geno's Steaks. Geno's was opened by Joe Vento in 1966 and, like Pat's, has been family owned and operated since its first day of business and is also open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Each place claims its cheesesteaks are the best in Philadelphia. The decision to make for the novice cheesesteak eater when visiting Philly is: Pat's or Geno's. Since Pat's is the original, I opted for their cheesesteak this time around. I'm a sucker for the genuine article.
Before I got to lunch, the walk from the hotel to Pat's alone was an experience: down Broad Street past vacant lots, left on Washington past Vietnam-town (is that the correct term?) and finally right onto the 9th Street barrio featuring plenty of colorful stores, including a live poultry market where you can get your bird of choice custom killed and I imagine plucked on the spot for you. I'm making it sound way sketchier than it really was. It was fine, although the smell coming out of the live poultry market was almost enough to put me off my cheesesteak. Almost.
Before I got to lunch, the walk from the hotel to Pat's alone was an experience: down Broad Street past vacant lots, left on Washington past Vietnam-town (is that the correct term?) and finally right onto the 9th Street barrio featuring plenty of colorful stores, including a live poultry market where you can get your bird of choice custom killed and I imagine plucked on the spot for you. I'm making it sound way sketchier than it really was. It was fine, although the smell coming out of the live poultry market was almost enough to put me off my cheesesteak. Almost.
After a mile and a half on foot, I was good and ready for some food and Pat's did not disappoint. I opted for a simple cheesesteak (no peppers or mushrooms for me) wit (south Philadelphia for "with") onions and Cheez Whiz. The time from ordering to receiving a hot sandwich was literally about 15 seconds. I'm not kidding. The meat wit onions was spatula-ed into a fresh warm roll and then the Cheez Whiz stick was pulled out of the Whiz tub and scraped across the top to complete my order. Fries and a water at the next window and a couple (OK, three) of hot cherry peppers on the side from the condiments bar opposite the ordering windows.
The only seating options are outside so I took what I could get despite the less than 40 degree temperature Sunday morning and ate. Pat's knows what they are doing. The meat was tender, the roll was fresh and the Cheez Whiz made it all come together. There's something so stereotypically and classically cheesy about the taste of fake cheese even though it really doesn't taste anything like any sort of real cheese at all. It's delicious. The only thing that made the experience even better was the two guys talking to the pickup driver next to us about how to avoid getting stopped by the cops on the highway in a broad Philadelphia dialect of English, if you can call it that.
Pat's was worth the trip for me. Everything about the whole morning had an authenticity to it that cannot be obtained by getting a cheesesteak from a sandwich shop in D.C., which I have done on many occasions. Maybe on my next trip to Philly, I'll check out Geno's. Although I honestly can't imagine it being any better.
The only seating options are outside so I took what I could get despite the less than 40 degree temperature Sunday morning and ate. Pat's knows what they are doing. The meat was tender, the roll was fresh and the Cheez Whiz made it all come together. There's something so stereotypically and classically cheesy about the taste of fake cheese even though it really doesn't taste anything like any sort of real cheese at all. It's delicious. The only thing that made the experience even better was the two guys talking to the pickup driver next to us about how to avoid getting stopped by the cops on the highway in a broad Philadelphia dialect of English, if you can call it that.
Pat's was worth the trip for me. Everything about the whole morning had an authenticity to it that cannot be obtained by getting a cheesesteak from a sandwich shop in D.C., which I have done on many occasions. Maybe on my next trip to Philly, I'll check out Geno's. Although I honestly can't imagine it being any better.
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