Pat’s raises the stakes: It’s reopening with a chicken cheesesteak and breakfast sandwiches

Whaddaya having?

Pat’s King of Steaks, having completed a kitchen makeover that turned its iconic South Philadelphia corner into a construction zone for nearly four months, will begin serving again round the clock from its windows this week.

Chicken cheesesteaks and breakfast sandwiches will join the menu — a first for Pat’s, credited with originating the steak sandwich in 1930. Owner Frank Olivieri Jr., a nephew of the founder, said the renovations include not only a dedicated grill for chicken but a new takeout window exclusively for delivery drivers.

During the repairs, which yielded a new kitchen, facade, and sidewalks, Pat’s maintained its 24/7 presence on the corner of Ninth and Passyunk with a 22-foot truck outfitted with a kitchen similar to the one inside.

The truck opened Jan. 10 on the Pat’s side of East Passyunk Avenue. Shortly after, the city Department of Licenses & Inspections, fearing danger from the propane tanks, ordered Olivieri to move it across the street, adjacent to Capitolo Playground. Olivieri said the short move confounded customers.

» READ MORE: The Inquirer's complete guide to cheesesteaks

“They walk right by it,” he said last week, wincing as a gaggle of customers did just that. “They don’t even see the food truck with the 30-foot cheesesteak on it.” Business dropped off until he hired a worker to stand in front of the shop and redirect customers.

The truck will move to an off-street parking space across the street and will be used for mobile catering. Olivieri said he has a July 4 gig in Ottawa for David L. Cohen, the former city power broker, Comcast executive, and now U.S. ambassador to Canada.

The 1990s saw the rise of the chicken cheesesteak based on the idea that chicken breast is lower in fat than the usual rib-eye. The idea caught on among many pizzerias and sandwich shops, including two of the city’s most popular outlets, John’s Roast Pork in South Philadelphia and Dalessandro’s in Roxborough.

Like everything that goes down in South Philly, there are differing opinions on the chicken cheesesteak. Purists will shudder at anything non-beef — chicken, salmon, veggies — being called a “cheesesteak.”

» READ MORE: Philly's most popular cheesesteak shops

Pat’s never offered them. Geno’s Steaks, the neon-ringed competitor across the street, doesn’t. Neither does Jim’s South Street Steaks.

Why?

When you’re slinging hundreds of sandwiches a day, speed is critical. Chicken, with its trickier handling requirements and longer cooking time, gums up the works, especially at a shop with one grill.

“Food-borne illnesses are much more prevalent in chicken,” said Ken Silver at Jim’s. “You have to handle it separately. And we got a guy who sells a really good chicken cheesesteak literally right across the street, Ishkabibble’s. It’s just a pain, and we have zero impact on our business from not selling them.”

Geno’s owner Geno Vento had the same reaction: “We have no reason to sell them.”

John Bucci, who said chicken is about 10% of his cheesesteak business at John’s Roast Pork, acknowledged the aggravation, but said: “We do it because people ask for it.”

Olivieri will start the new menu at 6 a.m. WednesdayBesides the chicken cheesesteaks, breakfast will be available from 6 to 11 a.m. with egg sandwiches on the same Aversa Bakery rolls used for cheesesteaks. Meats include bacon, pork roll, sausage, and steak, and the sandwiches (mostly $13) can be topped wit’ or wit’out onions, cheese (American, provolone, or Cheez Whiz), and $1 hash browns.

Steaks will continue to be offered during breakfast, but no one knows if the morning crowd will give them up in favor of a more typical “BEC,” or a new sandwich that Olivieri calls “the widow maker”: egg, cheese, bacon, sausage, and pork roll, with a hash brown stuffed into the roll for 20 bucks. Onions are optional.

Pat’s has cycled in other foods over the years. You can still get a hot dog, like Uncle Pat offered 94 years ago, and fish cakes. “I deep-fry a hot dog and fish cake and put fried onions on it and mustard,” Olivieri said. “That’s heaven. Or a trip to the cardiologist.”

Last year, Olivieri tried chicken Parmesan, meatballs, and hamburgers. “My father would always say, ‘You’re going to eat more than you sell,’” Olivieri said. That proved prescient. “My nephews came around and I think they ate more chicken Parms than we sold.”

In 1930, the story goes, South Philadelphia hot dog vendor Pat Olivieri wanted variety and tossed beef scraps and onions on the grill, slapped everything on a roll, caught the nose of a hungry taxi driver, and birthed the steak sandwich. Olivieri later moved across the street, into the current building on the triangle of Ninth, Passyunk, and Wharton, where it housed a bar, restaurant, and produce stand.

The cheesesteak didn’t come along till the late 1940s, Frank Jr. said, when a similarly bored grill man named “Cocky” Joe Lorenzo added sliced cheese to the steak and watched it melt into nirvana.

Frank Olivieri Jr. said the hundred-year-old building was last renovated about 30 years ago when the aluminum siding was removed. Other repairs had been done piecemeal. “Once we revealed everything underneath of it, it was kind of a mismatch of things that were done over the years,” Olivieri said. His family had a 99-year lease and only bought the building in the 1990s, he said.

“My dad was reluctant to do anything because he never wanted to close,” he said. “But you know, in order to get big things done, you have to.”