John’s Roast Pork – Philadelphia

Real cities have all have some unique food that people think of when you mention the city’s name. For some reason that I have yet to fathom, Philadelphia has the cheesesteak as our hometown food and that really is a shame because there are better eats to be had if you just dig a little bit. The roast pork sandwich, for example, has better cuts of meat and is jucier and more flavorful than any cheesesteak anywhere. But people still come to Philadelphia and make some sort of pilgrimage to Pat’s and Geno’s to pay homage to the cheesesteak*.

The Grill at John's

I’ve lived in Philadelphia for the better part of my life and I’ve never made it to John’sbefore and so I decided it was about time.  This place is a for real lunch counter.  They close promptly at 3pm unless they run out of bread and then they close early.  The last grill order must be placed by 2:30 ’cause that’s when they shut off the gas. Their customers are workingmen (and women) and they focus their energies on producing a good sandwich at a fair price.   They’ve been running it this way since 1930. When I went in at noon on a Wednesday, most customers looked like either longshoremen, police, or bus drivers.  They have a grill here, and people tell me that they serve really good cheesesteaks, but since I haven’t eaten any beef since 1997, I’m the wrong guy to ask about such things.  Maybe one of our other intrepid reporters can fill us in on the cheesesteak situation at John’s.

I came for the roast pork sandwich.

Now I want to put in a good word for being friendly.  I don’t know why it is that so many places around town feel that it is the job of the counter staff to treat their customers poorly.  I’ve walked into all kinds of places and the counter staff are rude or, at best, sullen.  Why?  This goes a long way to giving our city a bad image which really isn’t fair because most of the people I’ve met and dealt with in Philly are fine, friendly folk. Too often, the people behind the counter hate life and want you to share their viewpoint. The guy who took my order at John’s was really nice and asked if I’d been there before.  When I told him no, instead of rolling his eyes and making disparaging comments, he told me all the different options that I could have on my roast pork sandwich.

Roast Pork

I had mine with sharp provolone and fried onions and peppers with extra juice (this was a recommendation from the staff) and found that the sandwich is juicy, tender and delicious, if a bit salty.  The roll is nice and fresh, a bit crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, though it suffered from some rough handling on my part and got a little bit crushed.  The sandwich is a mess to eat, though, with juice dripping out at each bite.

John’s has some picnic tables out around the side to eat at, but is really a take away shop.  The environment at Front and Snyder doesn’t really lead itself to al fresco dining.  Again, this is a take away kind of place for the working man and is worth a detour if you want a sandwich that deserves to be famous but refuses to be flogged off on our tourists.  Because of the refusal to open on weekends and their genuine quality sandwich, I nominate this to the hall of fame. 

(*Hamburger Calculus Hint: Philadelphian’s never go to those places unless it is 2am and they’re out of their head on beer or want to see a crowd out of their head on beer)

Tags: hall of fame, philadelphia