Steve’s Steaks Pizza Cheese Steak Review

Steve’s Steaks Pizza Cheese Steak Review

Steve’s Steaks is located at 650 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 (corner of 7th and South Street). Established in 2003, Steve’s Steaks is a very popular cheese steak spot along the famous South Street in Philly.

You may have noticed by now that I have reviewed many places from the Italian Market and South Street area. Having eaten at various food spots all over the city, I have found that this area has some of the best of Philly foods.

Steve’s Steaks is a little eat in restaurant/diner that serves Philly cheese steaks, hoagies, club sandwiches, salads, milkshakes, burgers, wraps, gyros, and also Coca Cola in classic bottles (this is a nice fifties twist). This restaurant is sort of a fusion between modern Philly cheese steak shops and the original 1950’s diners.

I like Steve’s Steaks. My biggest problem was that the 2 chefs appeared to be very unfriendly. The owner himself, however, was very pleasant and this balanced everything out.

Steve’s Steaks had a very good cheese steak and a pizza steak. For those of you who don’t know what a pizza steak is let me elaborate. In Philly, a pizza steak is very popular. It is a Philly cheese steak with tomato sauce (South Philly calls it gravy) on top like a pizza meets a cheese steak. Actually, this sandwich, if done right, may be properly labeled an “Italian Sandwich” because it has the qualities of Italian Philly cheese steak and an Italian pizza. Steak, tomato sauce, provolone cheese, and an Italian roll are the ingredients, thus, an “Italian Sandwich” would be a well suited name.

Steve’s Steaks has a very good pizza steak. Their rolls are perfect: soft, lightly golden Italian rolls, which appears to have come from the local Italian Market in South Philly.

The steak is chopped extra lean beef steak. I think that a little more steak could have been added but considering that the roll was a foot long, you should be full on one sandwich.

The cheese (American, provolone, or whiz) is blended with the steak inside the roll. Some parts of the edges were not 100% cooked when served. Thus, my only suggestion would be to ensure that the cheese is fully cooked on all sides of the sandwich before giving it to the customers.
Considering that I ordered a pizza steak, it was hard to tell how tell how the onions (because they were well mixed in the sauce) were cooked but the sauce was average. The tomato sauce was good but it wasn’t great. The tomato sauce was served very hot and helped to cook the rest of the contents in the sandwich some more. I needed to wait a moment to let it cool down before I began my devouring.

Overall, Steve’s Steaks served a very good Philly cheese steak for the money. At $7.20 for the regular and $7.50 for the pizza steak, the value was there (at least more than the Big Three Cheese steak shops in Philly). I would only recommend that they work on their sauce a little more. A really good tomato sauce can make a pizza steak an unforgettable sandwich. Steve’s Steaks, welcome to the Best Philly Cheese Steak Club (you received your green light)!