Pat's King of Steaks - Philadelphia

Pat's King of Steaks, 1237 E Passyunk Ave, Philadelphia - (215) 468-1546 Menu, website

Pat's King of Steaks® was founded by Pat Olivieri in 1930. Pat had a modest hot-dog stand at the base of the famous Italian Market in South Philadelphia. One day he decided to have something quite different for lunch, so he sent for some chopped meat from the butcher shop. He cooked the meat on his hot dog grill, placed the meat onto an Italian roll, and dressed it with some onions. Just as he went to take a bite, a cab driver who ate a hot dog everyday asked what he had there. Pat said that it was his lunch. The cabbie insisted that Pat make him one. The cabbie took one bite and said to Pat, "Hey.....forget 'bout those hot dogs, you should sell these." The steak sandwich was born. As the years passed, both employees and customers alike demanded change..cheese was added.

Geno's Steaks - Philadelphia

Geno's Steaks, 1219 S. 9th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 Tel: 215-389-0659 Click here to view menu, website

Geno's Steaks was started by Joe Vento back in 1966. He figured that if he was going to sell a steak, he had to be where they were already eating them....at the "X" shaped intersection of 9th & Passyunk in South Philadelphia. Joe learned the cheese steak business from his father who in the early 1940's opened "Jim's Steaks". In 1966, Joe started "Geno's" with $6.00 in his pocket, 2 boxes of steaks and some hot dogs.

His competitors all gave him six months to succeed and Joe laughed at them em. As a twist of fate, there was already a Joe's Steak Place and Joe had to come up with a new name. He noticed a broken door in the back of his store on which a neighborhood boy by the name of "GINO" had painted his name. Joe liked the name but at that time, there was a food chain by that name and he did not want to confuse his business with that chain. So, he simply changed the "I" to "E" and decided to name his store GENO'S. In 1971, when their son was born, Joe and his wife Eileen decided to name him after their business. His son Geno works along with his father in a managerial capacity as well as handling many of the "behind the scene" tasks helping to make the business such a success. Since those days, Geno's has offered the best of cheese steaks.

Cheez Whiz is overrated for cheesesteaks

You've read it, heard it, tasted it, savored it, seen it in photo-op action: Want a "classic" or "authentic" Philly cheesesteak? Gotta go with Cheez Whiz. True, Whiz is king at Pat's and Geno's, those legendary South Philly sites at Ninth and Passyunk. Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as Bill and Chelsea Clinton, ate at Pat's - and had Whiz.

But pundits, pleez note: Whiz wasn't first historically, and it's no runaway favorite regionwide.
At John's Roast Pork, which serves up taste-test winners on Snyder Avenue, the processed cheese sauce isn't even served. "I'm a cheese eater, sweetheart, and I love cheese, but Whiz is not cheese," says owner Vonda Bucci, 75. "It's a lot of grease and coloring."

"We won't do it. We will not carry Cheez Whiz," said Jack Mullan, 50, co-owner of popular Leo's Steak Shop in Folcroft. And customers never complain. A recent Philly.com poll asked, "What cheese belongs on a cheesesteak?" and Whiz finished third. American edged out provolone after more than 5,700 votes were cast.

Even Geno's owner Joey Vento, 68, downplays Whiz. "To be honest with you, I've never eaten Cheez Whiz, and I'm the owner," he said. " . . . We always recommend the provolone. . . . That's the real cheese." The yellow runny goo, though, is the top choice of his customers - the locals as well as tourists, he said. Ditto at Pat's King of Steaks, where Whiz oozed its way into history, said owner Frank Olivieri Jr., 44.

Originally, the Philly steak sandwich, invented by his Uncle Pat in the early 1930s, he said, had no cheese. By and by, cheese was introduced. "Customers got tired of eating with or without onions, just like my Uncle Pat got tired of eating hot dogs," Frank Jr. said. American or sharp provolone? was the original debate, he said.

In the mid 1950s - not long after Cheez Whiz hit the market - his father, Frank Sr., began keeping some by the grill, and telling customers to try it. "It worked well, it tasted good. . . . It caught on," Frank Jr. said. Other places started "impostoring us," he said.
But not immediately.

Patent attorney Stuart Beck, 67, remembers American as the standard for steaks in the mid '50s and early '60s when he was a student at Overbrook High, and later at Drexel University.