South Street

There are a couple of restaurants in Burbank that claim other cities as their home towns. There is the Taste of Chicago which claims Chicago and then there is South Street which claims it's home to be Philadelphia, the home of the cheese steak.

I must agree, South Street has a pretty good cheese steak. The restaurant is on the corner and is a long thin building--not unlike a lot of the buildings in Philadelphia. The restaurant has exposed brick walls and TV's at every corner and is always playing a football game when I am there. The kitchen is encased in glass right by the door so if you are so inclined, you can watch your whole meal being made.

The menu is everything Philly. Tastee Cakes for dessert, soda from Philly, pizza, and cheese steak sandwiches are on the menu. There are a couple of salads and hot dogs on the menu as well. You order at the counter, take a number, and then they bring you your food.

If you do go to South Street, don't go for the "healthy route" of the salad. I had a chicken caeser salad at South Street and it turned me off from the restuarant for an entire year. The lettuce wasn't crunch, the chicken was thin strips of chicken with all the moistness pounded out of them--probably used for a "chicken cheese steak" sandwich. The chicken was cold and tasted frozen. On top of that, they forgot my salad and after about 30 minutes I had to ask for it and they weren't nice about it. But that was a year ago.

Finally, I got the nerve up to go back to that restaurant. I ordered the classic Cheese Steak special that comes with a side salad (actually crunchy!), fries, sandwich and a drink. I filled up my soda at the fountain and got a couple of containers of the spicy peppers. I had heard from my dining partners that the sandwich was excellent with the addition of the peppers.

The portions are huge. I could barely eat the entire meal. The sandwich was good, although the bread was a tiny bit soggy after a while. The peppers definitely added something to the sandwich. The salad was fine, but the Italian dressing was more oil than anything else. The fries were delicious. They are the kind of fries that still have some skin on them. There were four of us dining together and almost everyone had a cheese steak sandwich. The fourth person had the chili-cheese dog. Even though it didn't say in the description, the extra large dog came smothered in onions. This was a turn-off for this diner, however the dog looked delicious and was plenty large. It was a knife and fork kind of meal for that diner.

The service at South Street is hit or miss. There was that time I was forgotten, and there was another time when we arrived only an hour before closing and they told us they had a big order and there would be a 20 minute delay. This time, however, the football was on and the service was quick. After delivering your meal, there is hardly an interaction with the workers unless you need to buy something else.





South Street

117 N Victory Blvd
Burbank, CA 91502
Map