Frank P. Olivieri, longtime owner of Pat’s King of Steaks, has died at 87
Mr. Olivieri, whose father and uncle invented the steak sandwich, ran the landmark South Philadelphia stand for nearly four decades before his retirement in 1996.
Frank P. Olivieri, 87 — whose uncle and father invented the steak sandwich and who ran the landmark Pat’s King of Steaks for nearly four decades — died Sunday, Jan. 18. He had been under care for dementia, said his son, Frank E. Olivieri, who has run the shop since his father’s 1996 retirement.
Though the Olivieri name spread through Philadelphia over the years through various shops, Mr. Olivieri spent his entire working life at the intersection of Ninth, Wharton, and Passyunk in South Philadelphia. “I’m on my own little island,” he told The Inquirer in 1982.
The legend began in 1930 (in some accounts 1932) when Mr. Olivieri’s father, Harry, and his uncle, Pasquale “Pat” Olivieri, started selling hot dogs for a nickel at that corner. (Pat, the elder, got the naming rights.) One day, as the story goes, they got tired of eating hot dogs and bought a loaf of Italian bread and some steaks, sliced them up, and put them on the grill. (Cheesesteaks came along in 1951.) Curious cabdrivers begged for the sandwiches. “Pretty soon, they forgot all about the hot dogs and did nothing but steaks,” Mr. Olivieri told The Inquirer in 1982.
Mr. Olivieri told The Inquirer that he started working at the stand at age 11, selling watermelon and corn on the cob out front. He turned down the opportunity to go to the University of Pennsylvania to become an attorney, and chose to go into the family business, his son said.
Pat Olivieri moved to California in the 1960s; he died in 1970. In 1967, father and son Harry and Frank Olivieri bought the original stand, while Pat’s son Herb obtained licensing and franchising rights to the name.
Herb Olivieri opened Olivieri’s Prince of Steaks in Reading Terminal Market in 1982 and later ran a Pat’s location in Northeast Philadelphia (unaffiliated with the original). Herb’s son Rick owned sandwich shops, including the reflagged Rick’s Steaks at Reading Terminal, as well as stands at the Bellevue and Liberty Place food courts.
Pat’s, meanwhile, had become a 24-hour destination. Limos and tour buses, then as now, roll up at all hours.
When Sylvester Stallone filmed part of Rocky outside of Pat’s in 1976, he invited Mr. Olivieri to a private party afterward.
“I had to tell him I can’t go,” Mr. Olivieri recalled. “We didn’t get to be No. 1 by letting the business run itself.” Back then, Mr. Olivieri lived in Packer Park, kept a summer home in Brigantine, and was rarely more than an hour away.
“I can be here any time,” he said. “And I am here lots and lots of the time.”
In 1966, a competitor arrived across the street: Geno’s Steaks, owned by Joey Vento, a former Pat’s employee. The Pat’s-Geno’s rivalry — buzzing neon, dueling lines, endless debates over quality — is, in fact, wildly overblown. Current owners Frank E. Olivieri, popularly known as Frankie, and Geno Vento, Joey’s son, are good friends.
Mr. Olivieri, who served for many years on the board of directors of Provident Bank, was a whiz with numbers, his son said. He also was an avid fisherman and yachtsman who had his captain’s license. “He also taught me everything I know about electrical work, plumbing, woodworking, and how to fix just about anything,” his son said. “The reason I know how to do all of that is because if he couldn’t do something himself, I had to learn how to do it. Without his guidance, I wouldn’t know how to do any of it.”
Mr. Olivieri’s son recalls his father’s burgundy 1974 Corvette. “One of the happiest moments of my week was sitting in the passenger seat with him on Saturdays and Sundays,” he said. When they turned from Broad onto Wharton Street, “by the time we hit around 10th Street, I could already smell the onions cooking. He always had the T-tops off for me in the summer. That was my first introduction to being at the store.”
Besides his son, Mr. Olivieri is survived by his wife of 65 years, Ritamarie; daughters Danielle Olivieri and Leah Tartaglia; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Viewing will be from 9 to 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 23, at Baldi Funeral Home, 1327-29 S. Broad St. A prayer service and memorial tributes will begin at 11 a.m. The family requests donations to St. Maron Church, 1010 Ellsworth St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147.