in the rivalry of pats versus genos in south philly, I always liked genos cheesesteaks better. Hooray for their new move, even 10 years ago it was a royal pain when ppl hogged the line because they could not order in english.
An English-only ordering policy has thrust one of Philadelphia’s best-known cheesesteak joints into the national immigration debate.
Situated in a South Philadelphia immigrant neighborhood, Geno’s — which together with its chief rival, Pat’s King of Steaks, forms the epicenter of an area described as “ground zero for cheesesteaks” — has posted small signs telling customers, “This Is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING `SPEAK ENGLISH.'”
Dude genos is so good thatI would learn klingon if thats what they want me to order in.
You have to understand that this is a tough Italian local joint kinds place, which is while legendary, still a local joint, even if you speak english you have to order fast, and know that you cant order fries and soda at the cheesesteak window.
anyone remember the SNL skits of billygoat tavern of chicago, Cheeseborger cheseborger cheeseborger, no fry, chip.. etc.
thats what its like.
even if you speak english and get to the wndow and say err ummm ahh yes I would have a cheese steak with onions and some cheese whiz, they will kick your as, its just steak whizz wit, thats all u gota say, pay up and move on so the 50 ppl behind you can order too.
I have worked at a fast food restaurant and I can relate to what Fraudia posted. Here in Texas some places are really bad. Where I used to work, at times, people would literally yell at me "YOU NO ESPANOL?" and I could imagine myself saying to them "NO! YOU ****HEAD ME NO SPANISH!". Khair I get the feeling some people just don't want to learn English. For example Juan who worked at the grill, Sarita, Yesinia, Marisol who worked at the fryer all had been in U.S for 8 years but couldn't speak or understand a word of English. "No Mayo on the sadwich" I said and "aaaaaan kaayy no comprende" was Socorro's response. She had been in the U.S for 13 years. Amazing!
well there are good halal cheesesteak places, but they are not as good as pats or genos, but then thats true for the non halal ones too, genos and pats are amazing places.
if u want to try good halal cheesesteaks, there is one place by Penn campus, right around the masjid there, and then on Temple campus there is one across from the masjid there. Now this info is a few years old so u may want to find out more before u go on a roadtrip
well the business issue is that at Genos there is a mile long line there, now they are patient with people but it is not their responsibility to take orders in spanish..or mexican. I mean why not swahili then, or urdu or punjabi. so if some tourist shows up who speaks no english thats a diff thing but for locals to assume that ppl would take orders in spanish, thats just BS. I mean from my point of view why the hell do they have the spanish words first in some of the automated answering systems for credit cards etc, ..Para espanol, hey, do the english thing first, why force us english speakers to listen to the spanish menu prompt first? have that later.
