John’s has been serving up their famous namesake Italian-style roast pork sandwich on the corner of Snyder and Weccacoe Avenues since the 1930’s. While the majority of the traffic coming though Pennsport is now headed to IKEA or the Sports Complex, you can imagine what this area was like in the mid-century heyday of the Navy Yard and South Philly’s industrial past. Manufacturing has taken a back seat to logistics and retail, yet John’s and their neighbor Tony and Nick’s (i.e., the actual, original Tony Luke’s) have survived.
Although John’s roast pork is what put them on the map (and what recently put Nico, their pig mascot on a bag of Herr’s chips: https://billypenn.com/2023/07/05/herrs-flavored-by-philly-potato-chip-taste-test/), but in recently year’s this shop has been getting attention for their cheesesteaks.
John’s reportedly uses bread from Carangi Baking Company (Update: Carangi had a fire in December 2024), also in South Philly. This is a seeded roll that has been well-toasted and has a great flavor. The inside of the roll is not as soft as you’d expect, giving it a kind of stale appearance. But given the volume coming through John’s (the line down the sidewalk was long at 2:30 PM on a Saturday), that seems unlikely. The roll is also not scooped, so the end result is very thick. If you’ve had the roast pork sandwich, you know how the roll struggles under the moisture and the heft. In the case of the cheesesteak, it actually held up quite well.
There are a handful of cheese options, so we chose American. There was a decent amount of cheese, and it was fairly well integrated, but a little clumpy in some spots. Finely chopped onions are the standard. There’s a lot of them too, although there’s no real onion flavor in the sandwich.
The meat is what’s keeping this sandwich from being top-tier. The meat feels like it’s been sitting in a pile off to the side of the griddle all day. It’s warm-not hot-and a little bit soggy. The chop is on the smaller side, and there’s only a little bit of gristle.
▣ FROM THE SPOT
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