The unpretentious operation is efficient and friendlier than one might expect. There are countless places serving cheesesteaks in the Northeast, but Steve’s Prince of Steaks is still the, well, king. There are a lot of bakeries in the Northeast, but none quite so long-lived (at 123 years) and fundamental to the neighborhood that you can legitimately wonder if a trip to Holmesburg even counts if it doesn’t come with a box of powdered crème doughnut sandwiches, some mini Key lime pies, and a bag of cherry turnovers from Holmesburg Bakery. Our favorite Northeast Philly restaurants, mapped. You need to know how to experience it yourself? Cool. It’s a hundred things all at the same time - and it always will be. It is Philly’s pumping heart and its edible history. Will continue to change, day by day and year after year, as the forces of gentrification and demographics reshape the neighborhoods we’ve known and the things we love about this town.īut the Northeast? Somehow, it just seems eternal. There was a time when South Street was so weird, you needed a permit just to wear pants.Īnd okay, sure.

There was a time when the streets of South Philly were paved with spaghetti, when Phillies tickets cost a nickel and included all the hot dogs you could eat. And if somehow we lose those things entirely, what does Philly become? There’s a thin line between polish and erasure. It’s scrappy, insular, joyous, and occasionally ugly, but also approachable in ways that other parts of the city are beginning not to be. It’s where mom-and-pop joints and street-corner bars haven’t (yet) been gentrified out. It’s where first-gen families find their comfort in places where their language is still spoken and their foods are still served. Historically, it’s been a neighborhood of immigrants, and tomorrow, it will remain one. In a city of shiny skyscrapers, it’s this low-rise, strip-malled, huge and ungainly collection of a hundred small communities all finding ways to live together, bumping up against each other and throwing sparks like a Mercedes SLK.

A blue-collar time capsule from before so much else in Philly started turning so gleaming and polished and cool. The Northeast today represents a kind of Philly-that-was. That’s knowing a good thing when you taste it and being willing to gut it out until you get what’s yours, no matter what anyone else thinks. That’s loudness and brashness and camaraderie in suffering. Everyone said, Yeah, and fuck you, too, because him leaving just meant one less person in line ahead of the next poor sucker joining us in our slow journey toward the order window.Īnd that right there is Philly to me. And when the driver hit the sharp dip there and bottomed out - grinding sparks from his very fancy front end - everyone in line laughed. The pissed-off energy in how it made the turn onto Cottman.

You could feel the frustration in the way it left. Because inside the dark recesses of that car, someone is doing some quick calculations - looking at the length of the line, the number of people standing around waiting for their number to be called, weighing just how badly he wants a hot chicken sandwich and a banana smoothie right then and how long he’s willing to wait.Īfter a few seconds, the driver guns it, and the car shoots away. It’s quiet, or as quiet as a busy gas-station parking lot gets. It was a nice car - Mercedes, silver, windows tinted like aviator sunglasses - and it roared into the lot and squealed to a stop. I was standing in line one afternoon at the aforementioned hot chicken joint when this car pulls up. What do I mean? Let me tell you a quick Northeast story. It’s too often overlooked when we start talking about the foods or the restaurants that truly define us as a city. Because the Northeast gets too easily forgotten in this city’s mad scramble after every pretty young thing that catches our eye these days.

There’s a hot chicken stand in a gas-station parking lot on Roosevelt Boulevard where the lines can stretch out to the street - and if you don’t already know the place I’m talking about, then you, friend, are missing out.īut you, friend, are also exactly why we put this package together. I mean, have you? Have you gone to Mayfair for dim sum? Cruised through Bridesburg for spicy tots and kelp salad, or hit the corner of Englewood and Castor for malted waffles and Bloody Marys on a Sunday morning? In the Northeast, there’s a spot where you can find excellent foul and saj bread across the street from a storied pizza joint just recently brought back from the dead and 10 minutes from one of the best tomato pies in the entire city. Spread at Bishos / Photograph by Ted Nghiem

Korean fried chicken mad for chicken