Lost in Translation

This Wild West swagger, whether you buy into it or not, has made Joey Vento, 67 years old, something of a legend in Philadelphia, a town that loves oddballs and misfits. But it’s also made Vento the lead actor in a bizarre threepenny opera where freedom of speech, hot-button politics and cheesesteaks intersect. In the micro sense, the story is about whether a small-business owner has the right to post a sign that some people find offensive. But in the macro sense — the real sense, if you will — this is about things that are much larger. In a drama that could only happen in Philadelphia, Joey Vento has become both an unlikely hero and an unlikely villain, either an uncompromising, truth-telling patriot or a xenophobic, jingoistic racist, all because of an eight-word, eight-inch-by-three-inch sign he put in his window two years ago. Done up in suitable red, white and blue and featuring the American bald eagle, it declares THIS IS AMERICA. WHEN ORDERING, PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH. “I never said you had to recite the Declaration of Independence to get a cheesesteak,” he says, with a look that screams for someone — anyone — to understand. To get it. “I say, give me your worst immigrant, by the time I get through with them I’ll have them saying ‘cheesesteak.’ Give me a break here! What are we asking?”

Evidently, for trouble. In June 2006, the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, the agency charged with policing discrimination in the city, filed a complaint against Geno’s for its sign, alleging that its posting was “discouraging patronage by non-English speaking customers, all because of national origin and/or ancestry.” According to the CHR, that’s a violation of the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance, Section 9-1105 A and B, which seems to banish anything that could affect the rights of an individual based on his or her “race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, ancestry, physical handicap or disability, or marital status.” In plainer language? City to Joey: Take the goddamned sign down.

Care to guess what Joey said?

Joey Vento wouldn’t seem to be a natural candidate to serve as a lightning rod igniting a national movement. He is, by his own admission, not articulate. He can be dismissive, curt, even snide. His claim to fame is creating what appears to be a theme-park ride masquerading as a restaurant — a vomiting kaleidoscope of neon that looks like something between an appliance superstore and the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. The line outside often snakes down the block on warm weekend nights, mainly a sea of chubby young men in baggy jeans and sideward baseball caps, as if there had been a massive casting call for a new Turtle on Entourage.

And it all could have stayed this simple, and in many ways should have stayed this simple. Geno’s continues its longtime rivalry with neighboring Pat’s, Philly continues to get fat, everybody eats and remains happy. But then Joey put up his sign, and for some reason, a lot of people who would seem to have a lot better things to do started to make a very big deal about it.

Joey opened Geno’s in 1966, having worked for his dad and others in the steak-sandwich trade from the age of seven. The grandson of Italian immigrants who came over in the early 1900s, he grew up in various rented rowhomes around South Philly, and did the things that guys who grew up as he did do: He got kicked out of school, joined the Army, married a nice local girl, had a son, worked his ass off building a business, bought a place in Jersey, joined the middle class. As the years passed, the media stoked his rivalry with Pat’s, and he gladly played along, shucking and jiving in the press and watching the tourists flock down to South Philly to see what all the fuss was about (and buy a few Whiz wit’).