WIT OR WITOUT?

After my all-too-brief visit to the Grey Lodge's Friday The Firkinteenth beer festival last Friday, good friend Gary Bredbenner and I made our way 11 blocks north to the newest destination cheesesteak shop, WIT OR WITOUT? (yep, that's the real name of the place), 7352 Frankford Ave., just above Cottman Ave. I saw a brief mention of the place in a recent Michael Klein column in the Inquirer, and from the sound of it, I had to check it out. The place was running a pricing promotion that was hard to resist: opened in January, they were pricing cheeseteaks at $3 in January, $4 in February, $5 in March, and settling to $6 in April. So, a $4 cheesesteak or two after a few hours of superb cask beer, how could we go wrong?

It's a bright, clean, tiled, shotgun storefront, with a few tables and stools and countertops all along the left wall of the place, cheery staff in black polos, good smell of onions and beef everywhere. Gary and I ordered two cheesesteaks wit' (if you're late to the Philly patois thing, that means cheesesteak with fried onions, and hence the clever name of the clearly franchise-ready place), an order of fries and some sodas. The steaks pieces on the grill, Gary and I concurred, were likely eye round, fresh and nicely red, and the griller clearly knew how to handle the meat with minimal grease and no chopping. Bread looked solidly good; American, provalone and whiz are the cheese options.

These are good, hefty cheesesteaks.

Fries were decent, frozen potatoes served in a styro cup, but with good greaseless execution.

Photos are courtesy of Gary, who learned that this place is owned by the fellow who started the Philadelphia Pretzel Co franchise operations. Expect to see a few more Wit Or Witouts soon.

Damn fine cheesesteaks!