When Valerie Page and her husband Billy opened OMG Burgers & More in Belmont Heights earlier this year, they weren’t just bringing cheesesteaks and water ice to the city—they were building a tribute to their roots, their community, and a shared dream two decades in the making. Honoring her husband’s so-called “old man gang” of friends—which would borrow a warehouse up in Long Beach the couple used for events and convert it into a man-cave of sorts to discuss community and entrepreneurial dreams—the tiny shack is a sonnet to the food of Philly.
OMG Burgers & More is decades in the making.
Long before water ice hit SoCal, Billy had his first taste of the sweet treat in the late 1990s. And with it (including proper cheesesteaks), the pair thought they could capitalize on it when they moved back to Billy’s birthplace, good ol’ SoCal.
“When my husband moved to Philadelphia with me, he didn’t know what water ice was,” Valerie said. “But once he had it, he was hooked. He was like, ‘We could do this in California—no one knows what this is out here.’ And we sat on it. And sat on it. After building up my make-up career, it honestly felt like something in the far rearview because you could have never told me I would be slinging burgers and making kids water ice,” she said, laughing. “But the work is so fulfilling.”
This passion has created what is certainly the city’s best cheesesteak and, if I say, water ice superior to Happy Ice. But OMG Burgers is, well, oh so much more than that as it takes over what used to house Seoulmate, a ghost kitchen, and a seemingly varying revolving door of failed eateries.
The food of OMG Burgers has a deep, heartwarming nostalgia to it—even if you’ve never had food from Philly.…