Monday, March 24, was National Cheesesteak Day, a day celebrated mostly in Philadelphia and South Jersey.
The cheesesteak was born in 1930 when Pat Olivieri, a hot dog vendor who had a stand in the Italian Market in South Philadelphia, grilled beef cooked onions on put it all on one of his hot dog buns for himself.
History of the cheesesteak
The story of the success of the cheesesteak gets a little murky. The story goes that Harry Olivieri, Pat’s brother, a cab driver, got a taste of Pat’s steak sandwich and encouraged him to bag the hot dog stand and sell those great-tasting steak sandwiches. Pat Olivieri opened a new, bigger stand in the same location, called Pat’s King of Steaks.
Regardless, the cheesesteak sandwiches became a South Philly favorite and sold like wildfire…