A Philly judge inspires his wife to open a cheesesteak shop. What’s the verdict?

Jackee DiClaudio said she must have heard the stories a hundred times — the teen years her husband spent behind the counter at his parents’ corner luncheonette in South Philadelphia, serving guys like Cadillac Al, Post Office Joe, and Big Mitch (he was big into the horses).

Shay’s, across from Mifflin Square Park at Fifth and Wolf, was Scott DiClaudio’s passion. His dad, Jimmy, and his mom, Sylvia (“Shay” to everyone), dipped ice cream, sold candy, emptied the quarters out of the video games, and cooked for the neighborhood: bacon and eggs for the truckers at 6 a.m., lunch for the kids from Taggart School, and dinner for the cabbies late at night.

Jimmy and Shay retired in 1996 after 25 years. Scott, now 59, went on to law school, then to the Philadelphia District’s Attorney’s Office, and eight years ago, to the state bench.

His memories of Shay’s so impressed Jackee DiClaudio, 28, a certified public accountant, that one day she said, “I want to open up a restaurant.” Specifically, a South Philly-style cheesesteak shop.

“I said, ‘I’ll support you,’” said Scott DiClaudio, who by day hears criminal cases on the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Shay’s Steaks, the name now revived, hangs over Jackee DiClaudio’s cafe at 200 N. 16th St., the ground floor of Franklin Tower Residences in Center City. Jackee said she enlisted her father, Jim, a mechanic, to help out on Saturdays “because I like the family dynamic.”

Scott DiClaudio stays in the background, although his crier may have addressed him as “Whiz Honor.” After hours, discussions of pleas turn to cheese and writs to Whiz wit. In addition to Scott’s mother’s recipes for dishes such as lasagna and chicken cutlets, Shay’s offers a regular steak sandwich with sirloin, as well as a chicken steak.

Jackee’s love of steakhouses has found its way into the rest of the menu, which starts at breakfast. (The restaurant is across from Friends Select School.)

One day, Jackee had some leftover New York strip steak in the fridge, and asked Scott to slice it down. They had a bottle of Montreal steak seasoning in the house, plus Cooper Sharp American cheese. Scott chopped onions, heated it all up in a pan, popped it into a Liscio’s roll left over from breakfast, “and literally it was the best-tasting steak I ever ate in my life,” she said.

“I said. ‘This would be an incredible idea to make cheesesteaks,’” Scott said. “The next time I did it, I said, ‘Instead of having Montreal steak seasoning, how about if I add red garlic jalapeño?’ It was better than the first one.”

They experimented with other cuts of meats, seasonings, and cheeses, and allow customers to choose. Jackee said her current favorite is prime rib with horseradish seasoning and either pepper jack or Cooper Sharp cheese. The rolls are partly scooped to better hold meat and cheese.

The sandwiches with the steakhouse beef, which are 8 ounces and sliced to order, do not come cheap: $18.95 for New York strip, $19.95 for prime rib, $27.50 for filet mignon, and $31.95 for American wagyu.

Jackee DiClaudio thinks it’s a value compared with the price of a steak at a restaurant: “The meat, and the seasoning, and the bread. Either way, you’re in heaven for 15 minutes while you eat it.”