Anyone who goes to Philly and tries to compare multiple cheesesteaks should also go to the Museum of Art and run up the steps several times ala Rocky. Rocky is no longer at the top of the steps and is instead off to the right but I digress. This thread is about cheesesteaks.
So there are a lot of places to buy cheesesteaks in South Philly. I would say that you can't really go wrong with many of the spots but everyone has their favorite. The first time I went to Philly I ate at Jim's and it was hands down my favorite. They were located on South street but they had a fire and are still closed. So that was a disappointment and one of the reasons I decided to do some shopping around.
I ate the steaks the same way at every location I tried: with cheese whiz and onions. I am going to start off talking about the tourist spots that everyone knows--Pat's & Geno's located basically across the street from each other. I did not eat at Tony Luke's because I think of that as more of a franchise type place and not really a local spot. They have a Tony Luke's in Citizens Bank Park after all so that is about as commercialized as you can get IMO.
Pat's to me is a superior cheesesteak sandwich to Geno's; and I think the reason is the bread. The bread seemed much fresher and almost home made compared to the more bun style that I got at Geno's. The cheese on Geno's also seemed almost watered down compared to the thick cheese that came with the Pat's steaks. This was not my first trip to Pat's & Geno's and I had the same opinion the first time; Pat's is just a better sandwich. On the side, Pat's had the best fries of any of the places I stopped. The locals will tell you these places are both more for tourists and there are better places for cheesesteaks. I tend to agree but if you go to Philly you check these spots out at least once; if you are only going to try one of them though; my advice is try Pat's.
Another spot on the same street as Pat's (Passyunk Ave) is Philip's. This was a solid steak but really nothing special to me. I liked the cool stand up counter that they had outside to eat at and the neighborhood feel of the place; but the steak itself was just a simple sandwich. Not a bad place for lunch but nothing to make it really stand out. The fries were decent here also and I added cheese to them also just to be absolutely insane.
One of my Uber drivers suggested this spot...Ishkabibbles. The name is cool and the vibe of the place is awesome. Total neighborhood spot with that particular brand of South Philly friendly customer service. The sandwich to me though was a little lacking. They seemed to skimp a bit on the amount of meat on the sandwich and it was a little dry in comparison to most of the other steaks I tried. If time permitted I would have gone back there and tried them again...I was there on a Saturday and it was packed and I think maybe they got a little overwhelmed and the food quality suffered. I was a little disappointed with that but the vibes and service would convince me to go back again and give them another shot.
Sonny's! This one was my favorite. It is located in the Old City and draws quite a crowd but the line moves quick. The roll is absolutely stuffed with meat and it is the right mix of not too greasy but not dry. The cheese was just right; the fries are more of the shoestring style fry which is not my favorite style but they were well prepared, crispy and had a nice flavor. Sonny's also had a lot of variety of different types of cheesesteaks that I didn't see at many of the other places so again if given the chance to go there again I would probably like to try something else; although it would be hard to beat that old school philly cheesesteak.
lumbus is bigger than CincinNasti