Inside the Great Cheesesteak-Throwing Incident of 2026
Pat's Steaks owner Frank Olivieri reveals how the thrower was found—and who will get the $5,000 reward.
A customer throws a cheesesteak at a longtime Pat’s Steaks employee in Philadelphia (screenshot via Pat’s Steaks surveillance footage)
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Never a dull moment in the world of cheesesteaks in Philadelphia.
On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Police Department responded to a cheesesteak-throwing incident at Pat’s Steaks in South Philadelphia. Yes, a cheesesteak-throwing incident.
Pat’s Steaks owner Frank Olivieri quickly announced a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the cheesesteak-thrower (the city’s standard reward in a homicide case is $10,000, but throwing a cheesesteak is a serious breach of cheesesteak protocol), and it was two of Olivieri’s I.T. employees who wound up splitting the reward after finding the person in question. It wasn’t exactly Scotland Yard-level detective work: the customer appeared to have posted his video on his own social media channels. “Your digital footprint tells you everything,” Olivieri says. “And he just made it so easy for us to figure out who it was. Unless he just wanted to get caught.”
Hmmmm. Wouldn’t be the first time a wannabe influencer did something stupid for publicity purposes, though, in this case, the customer’s social media accounts appear to have vanished.
According to the Philadelphia Police Department, the customer, whose identity has not been released, turned himself into police on Thursday. He is being charged with harassment, which is generally categorized as a summary offense — lower than a misdemeanor — in Pennsylvania. State law says that a person is guilty of harassment if they, “with intent to harass, annoy or alarm another… strike, shove, kick, or otherwise subject the other person to physical contact, or attempt or threaten to do the same.” The maximum sentence is up to 90 days in jail and a maximum fine of $300.
“Harassment in Philadelphia basically means that they let you go and they give you a soft pretzel and water ice and tell you to go home,” opines Olivieri. He says he’s grown weary of influencers and their ever-present cameras and wants to ban cameras up at the counter, having random individuals filming his employees. “But Nancy’s telling me we shouldn’t do it,” Olivieri says of his wife, Nancy Schure, who works with him in the business. “There’s a lot of good stuff out there,” she insists.
“I’m just trying to run a business,” says Olivieri. “I have 27 families that work for me that I need to make sure have livelihoods. And my intention is to make sure that everybody goes home every week with a paycheck. I don’t need people coming down and making false claims against my sandwich. That’s not how you make a living. Get a job. Like, you know, a real job.”
