Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
David Darlington has a post at In the Agora about the ongoing situation in Philadelphia over an English-only requirement at one of its famous cheesesteak establishments. As David notes, the two most famous places to get authentic cheesesteak sandwiches in Philly are Geno's and Pat's, which are located across the street from each other. And Geno's is now in trouble with the city because he put up a sign that says "this is America, please order in English". The city is actually taking legal action against the restaurant for this, which is absurd. But even worse, perhaps, is this:
Vento has done some conservative things in the past -- when I was there in summer of 2005 he had renamed his French fries "Freedom Fries" -- but this has got him a bit more attention.
If renaming the french fries as "freedom fries" is a "conservative thing", then it's time for people to rethink conservatism. The legislators at the Capitol in Washington who actually voted to rename the fries in the congressional cafeteria to freedom fries should have been impeached for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty. Such exercises in idiocy - a Minnesota legislator actually brought a bill in the wake of the Iraq war to ban French wines from the state, while a Florida legislator wanted to die up all the American GIs buried in France and bring them home - are an embarrassment to this country. I liked Pat's better and now I'm glad. Joey Vento is a moron.
Comments
Ed -
I'm assuming you mean 'dig' up, and not 'die'.
Speaking of idiocy, wasn't there a senator just last week calling for adultery to not only be made illegal, but to be made a felony?
Posted by: Dave S. | July 24, 2006 10:24 AM
What are they going to do about foreign tourists. Not all of them speak english (although most do, of course; the shame of this is there would be no issue jere if Americans weren't too lazy to learn a second language).
In any case, a restaurant is a "common carrier" and hence has no power to discriminate between would-be patrons other than that they maintain health standards ("shoes and shirt required"). I'm with you, Ed, this is idiotic.
Posted by: kehrsam | July 24, 2006 11:22 AM
Contrary to what a lot of California food-business owners (can't accurately call all of them "restaurateurs") may think, state law does not require either shoes or shirts on restaurant patrons, at least the last time an attorney friend checked.
Back in my days of working food service, one owner told me that he required shoes to avoid nuisance suits from barefooters who might step on broken glass.
Posted by: Pieter B | July 24, 2006 12:06 PM
You can't be impeached for pedantry for calling them "Belgian Fries."
Posted by: Jim Anderson | July 24, 2006 12:17 PM
"You can't be impeached for pedantry for calling them "Belgian Fries.""
No, but you're then required to dip them in warm mayonaisse. Ick.
Posted by: kehrsam | July 24, 2006 12:23 PM
Harry Olivieri, Pat's brother, died last Thursday. He was 90.
In the Los Angeles Times article that ran today in the Dallas Morning News, it is observed that at Pat's, ordering must be done right the first time, or it's to the back of the line. I wonder which is more brutal: To be required to order in English, or to be required to get the order perfect?
I found the article here, at least for a while: http://tinyurl.com/k6k34
Posted by: Ed Darrell | July 24, 2006 2:04 PM
I wonder which is more brutal: To be required to order in English, or to be required to get the order perfect?
I suppose that depends on whether you're at the front of the line or not.
If you've ever been stuck behind someone who hasn't figured out what they want by the time they step up to the counter, you might see this sort of thing as a godsend.
I will never forget one day at Mr. Beef in Chicago, when the counter man asked a customer "what'll you have?" The customer hadn't made a decision yet, and began with "uhhhh..."
"We don't serve 'uhhhh' here, sir," he said, and moved on to the next guy.
Posted by: Phillip J. Birmingham | July 24, 2006 3:15 PM
Not ordering in English is stupid, from a purely personal standpoint. If I were dropped down in Beijing with no preparation at all, I'd still do my damnedest to order in Chinese. If I had to, I'd just repeat what someone next to me ordered. And then I'd know what it was called. (Oh, and I wonder if all these 'Merkins from Philly can say the same... Or would they insist on using English there, too?)
Meanwhile, not tolerating people who order in foreign languages is also stupid. Why turn your back on money, which is the universal language? If it makes you feel better, you can count the change in English.
And lastly, yes, making this the subject of a lawsuit is also stupid. Our greatest and most important freedom is the freedom to be stupid -- whole sectors of the population would be fully enslaved without it -- but that said, no one should have the freedom to be stupid using my tax money.
Posted by: Jason Kuznicki | July 24, 2006 3:59 PM
From a letter to the editor published in the Boston Globe a few weeks ago, the irony is that, in 1965, when Joey Vento's family owned and operated Geno's Joey reportedly worked behind the counter. At that time, all the menus in Geno's Steaks were in Italian only, and the staff spoke Italian exclusively and refused to speak English to non-Italian-speaking customers. Even the ``Employees must wash hands before returning to work" sign in the men's room was in Italian. You had to either order in Italian, use charades, or point to a picture.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2006/06/24/could_this_be_last_word_in_english_or_otherwise_on_genos_steaks/
Posted by: raj | July 24, 2006 4:01 PM
I've heard from Philly people that both places are tourist food and that any random pizza joint in Philly can make a superior cheesesteak. I actually think that both places use cheese whiz...
Posted by: Matthew | July 24, 2006 4:04 PM
Matthew-
I suspect that's just the kind of talk you hear from people who think anyone or anything that becomes famous has to be bad and anything obscure has to be good. I call them the "I liked N'Sync when they were underground" folks. At either place, you have your choice of cheese, and yes, cheese whiz is one of them. I don't know why anyone would put cheese whiz on anything, but that's only one choice among several.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | July 24, 2006 4:25 PM
I prefer to call them hipsters. They are the types who think The Pixies have gotten too popular. That could be the case here, but I've never even been to Philly, let alone eaten at Geno's or Pat's. I've also heard that Joey Vento has somewhat of a soup nazi reputation and that he regularly yells at customers who speak perfect english if they don't order fast enough or in the way he likes.
Posted by: Matthew | July 24, 2006 4:42 PM
If I were the restaurant owner, I might put up a sign that said; "We donate $.05 from each sandwich to ESL education!" and have handouts in Spanish about how to get the classes. And of course, "Free combo lunch with ESL graduation certificate!" But that's just me, more carrot than stick.
Hell, they're customers! Generating goodwill is always better than insulting people. Of course news cameras would still show up, and you could say something funny and self-effacing, like "Studies show that being bilingual leads to higher income, so people can afford to eat out more!"
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | July 24, 2006 10:56 PM
Ed, on the tourist vs. "genuine" Philly cheesesteak issue, I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, near Norristown, and it's my view that plenty of places in the area can make a good cheesesteak, though oddly not once you leave the metropolitan area. Good luck finding a reasonable Philly cheesesteak in faraway Baltimore, for instance.
I don't know if Pat's is that great. We had a local suburban favorite with a loyal following. This was in the 70s, and I'm not sure they are still around. The idea of Cheez Whiz disgusts me. I always ordered provolone, which I thought was the standard. I always liked sauce on mine, but that was optional (it's amazing the things they'll dump on it outside the region where people know how to make them). What makes them good is the supply of local Italian bread. There's a place in San Jose, Amato's, that ought to be good but they cannot replicate the bread locally and it is not cost effective to ship in.
Posted by: PaulC | July 24, 2006 11:09 PM
Strangely enough, one of my college friends is from Philly (we go to college in D.C.) and he says that the cheesesteaks that the school's grill-place makes are the best he's ever had outside Philadelphia. He also says that the Jersey Shore makes great cheesesteaks, partly because they use the same rolls as Philly. That seems to line up with what you said about the good local supply of Italian bread.
My friend always orders American cheese, which, according to him, is the standard. He also never gets anything on it other than the steak and the cheese. No onions, no sauce, nothing.
Personally, I can't stand American cheese in any form. I always get something else, whether it's Swiss, provolone, or even Monterey Jack.
Posted by: FishyFred | July 25, 2006 12:43 AM
I live in Philadelphia. I prefer Jim's because it has the best bread. Lots of places make good cheesesteaks, but I believe that Jim's, Pat's, and Geno's all deserve to be among, if not at, the top of the pack.
If you don't specify, you get whiz. I have personally seen this happen at all three. Many tourists don't realize that they have to choose to get real cheese and end up getting whiz.
Posted by: A | July 25, 2006 8:31 AM
Up through middle school, I lived 45 minutes west of Philly. For high school, my family moved about an hour and a half away to Maryland, about 45 minutes west of Baltimore. For college, I moved slightly further away to inside the D.C. beltway. And now, for my job, I'm living all the way down in Texas. Cheese steaks from the city itself weren't necessarily any better than those from the suburbs of Philly (like where I was growing up), but once you got outside that hour or so radius, the quality definitely went downhill. I'll admit that some places outside of that area do make good cheese steaks, but it certainly gets harder to find them the further away you get. Hell, I can't even find the right type of steak in the grocery store down here.
Posted by: Jeff | July 25, 2006 4:33 PM