Pat’s King of Steaks

The Corner That Started It All

There are intersections in American food culture that carry more symbolic weight than any dining room. The corner of Passyunk Avenue and 9th Street in South Philadelphia is one of them. Pat's King of Steaks has occupied this spot since 1930, when Pat Olivieri is credited with inventing the cheesesteak as a street food format — griddled beef on a hoagie roll — that would eventually define how the rest of the country imagines Philadelphia. Whether or not you accept the founding mythology at face value, the physical fact remains: this is the oldest continuously operating cheesesteak counter in the city, and it sits across the street from its most direct rival, Geno's Steaks, creating what amounts to an open-air tribunal where the question of which steak is superior gets relitigated by visitors every single day.

That rivalry is worth understanding before you arrive, because it shapes the experience. The two counters face each other like dueling thesis statements. Pat's tends to attract the historically minded visitor; Geno's draws those who want the flashier presentation. The reality is that the quality argument between them is largely a matter of preference and loyalty rather than measurable technical superiority. What matters more for a first-time visitor is understanding that both exist within a local tradition, the South Philly cheesesteak, that is separate from, and frankly more interesting than, the tourist-board version of the sandwich served in most of the city's airport-adjacent outlets.

What the 24-Hour Format Actually Means

Pat's is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year. That logistical detail is not incidental, it is structurally central to what the place represents. A cheesesteak counter that closes for dinner service or shuts on federal holidays would be making a different argument about itself. This one does not close. The 2 a.m. crowd after a Phillies or Eagles game is as legitimate a visiting cohort as the lunchtime tourist. The counter operates identically at 3 a.m. as it does at noon: you queue, you order, you receive your sandwich at the window, and you eat standing at one of the outdoor tables or leaning on the rail.

That format, outdoor, counter-service, standing, defines the register of the experience. This is not a sit-down operation, and the absence of table service is not a shortcoming; it is the point. American fast-casual and quick-service formats have evolved significantly since 1930, but Pat's has resisted the hospitality infrastructure that most modern operations layer on. You order in the correct sequence (size, cheese, onions), you pay, you move on. First-time visitors who arrive without that knowledge can slow the line noticeably, which is why understanding the ordering convention in advance is the single most practical piece of preparation you can do before you show up.

Ordering Protocol and the Cheese Question

The cheesesteak format at Pat's follows a specific grammar. You specify your sandwich, then your cheese, Cheez Whiz, provolone, or American, and then whether you want onions ("wit" or "wit-out"). Cheez Whiz is the traditional choice and the one most closely associated with the South Philly style. This is not a matter of culinary sophistication or its absence; it is a regional convention with decades of precedent behind it, and ordering provolone or American does not make the sandwich better or worse, only different. The Whiz melts into the beef in a way the harder cheeses do not, which is why purists defend it.

The beef is thinly shaved ribeye, cooked on a flat-leading griddle and chopped as it cooks. The roll is a long Italian-style hoagie roll with a crisp crust. Both of those elements are non-negotiable to the format, variations on either would produce a different sandwich with a different name. Pat's uses the same core construction it has used for decades, which is partly why it retains its standing as a reference point even as Philadelphia's broader restaurant scene has moved significantly toward more complex, technique-driven cooking.

Philadelphia's Food Scene Beyond Passyunk

Cheesesteak's cultural dominance has occasionally obscured how much depth Philadelphia's broader dining offer has developed over the past two decades. The city now sustains serious New American operations like Fork and Friday Saturday Sunday, a Cambodian and Pan-Asian program at Mawn, French-influenced work at My Loup, and authentic regional Mexican at South Philly Barbacoa, the last of which is also on Passyunk Avenue and also ranked on the Opinionated About Dining Cheap Eats list, which signals something about the avenue's continued relevance as a food address beyond its most famous resident.

For visitors building a broader Philadelphia itinerary, the EP Club guides for restaurants, bars, hotels, wineries, and experiences cover the full range. Pat's occupies a specific and unreplicable position in that picture, but it is a starting point for understanding the city's food culture rather than a summary of it. The comparison is not to tasting-menu restaurants, the register is entirely different from operations like Le Bernardin in New York City, Alinea in Chicago, The French Laundry in Napa, Lazy Bear in San Francisco, Atomix in New York City, Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg, Emeril's in New Orleans, or 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong, but within the cheap eats category, a ranking of #210 on Opinionated About Dining's 2024 North America list places it in competitive standing against hundreds of operations across the continent.

Planning Your Visit

Pat's is located at 1237 Passyunk Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19147. The 24-hour format removes the usual timing pressure of restaurant visits, there is no last seating, no kitchen closing time, no reservation to secure. What varies is crowd volume: weekend afternoons and post-event late nights generate the longest queues. Midweek daytime visits, particularly mid-morning or early afternoon, tend to move faster. There is no booking mechanism and no indoor seating; the experience is entirely outdoors at the counter and the standing tables, which means weather conditions in January or February are a legitimate planning variable.