The City’s Newest Hyped Cheesesteak Is Completely Overrated
Our critic visits Uncle Gus' Steaks in the Reading Terminal Market. It doesn't go great.
Cheesesteaks from Uncle Gus’ Steaks / Photograph by Ed Newton
Across the way, a photographer is bent double, trying to get a dramatic hero shot of a stack of baklava on the counter at Kamal’s. Next door, the Bassetts crew is eyeing the short line at Reading Terminal Market’s newest cheesesteak stand while they work.
At Uncle Gus’ Steaks, they call 17. They call 18. Push brown paper bags across the counter. Give everyone a smile.
The team here is a kind of culinary supergroup assembled from some pretty legendary players. There are market veterans Joe Nicolosi from DiNic’s and Dave Braunstein from Pearl’s Oyster Bar. From the outside, they’ve got Danny DiGiampietro from Angelo’s in Bella Vista.
“Nineteen!” someone yells from the counter. I look down at my ticket. I’m number 21. I’ve still got time.
The focus here is to be the singular answer to the question that all tourists ask when they first get to Philly: Where can I get the best cheesesteak? So they do one 12-inch sandwich, dressed in a variety of ways. Three cheese options. Onions or no. Sliced long hots off the grill. Mushrooms for the tourists. Cherry peppers if that’s your thing.
Nineteen comes huffing in from outside. Behind the counter, they call number 20, then 21.
I take my bag, find a seat, peel the paper from the sandwich, and it is … fine. Just on first looks, I’m bothered by its relative skimpiness, the meat that doesn’t go all the way to either end. A cheesesteak should be a celebration of abundance — a greasy, messy disaster of a thing, heavy as a weapon, comforting in its heft. This is not that.
Eating it doesn’t improve my opinion. Again, there’s nothing at all wrong with it. The meat is unevenly chopped, but I like mine that way. And the bread is excellent — those seeded, split rolls are just one of the dozen reasons why Angelo’s got famous. There’s the customary hit of salt and fat that’s the calling card of Philly’s signature sandwich, and the Cooper Sharp gums everything together and makes it stick, but it is a thoroughly run-of-the-mill sandwich. Harmless, but far from inspired.
And that’s the thing about supergroups. Math would say that every single one should be awesome — an exponential combination of talents. But real life doesn’t work that way. Not always, anyway. Sometimes you get Zeppelin, and sometimes you get the Traveling Wilburys.
Right now, Gus’ is offering the Traveling Wilburys of cheesesteaks. Can they chart? Absolutely. But the Wilburys were never going to be number 1.
Published as “New Steak on the Block” in the March 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
