Pardon My Cheesesteak Review
The newest culinary venture from Barstool Sports and the Pardon My Take podcast is Pardon My Cheesesteak. It’s a delivery and pickup cheesesteak restaurant that uses ghost kitchens and apps like DoorDash or Uber Eats to deliver cheesesteaks, loaded fries, and brownie bites to customers across the country. Their website boasts hundreds of locations.
First, I’d like to start out by saying that I might be the least picky person when it comes to cheesesteaks. I’m not from Philadelphia, so there’s at least an entire city of people who are probably far more qualified to rate this product than me. However, I’ve had enough cheesesteaks in my day such that I feel confident giving a review. Jackson turned in his review of One Bite Frozen Pizza, so this is just the followup.
For the purposes of this review, I am looking at the standard cheesesteak. Pardon My Cheesesteak will be graded on four categories, each out of five points: Cost, Presentation, Steak, and Overall Taste.
Cost
This is the first thing you’ll see when looking to buy from Pardon My Cheesesteak. The standard sandwich costs $9.99, which isn’t bad, but that price can quickly balloon given delivery apps’ penchant for adding on a bunch of extra fees. Including delivery, tax, and a tip for the delivery driver, this ended up costing me around $20. Depending on where you are located it could be even more. I checked how much it would be to get one delivered to my workplace in the city and it came out to almost $30, which is absolutely insane.
The base price is a little much, plus I have to dock some points because of the ubiquitous extra fees. I’m sure it would have been a different story if I had gone to pick it up in person, but I feel like most people use delivery apps to get it taken to their house rather than to get it themselves.
Score: 3.25/5
Presentation
The packaging was fairly nondescript: plain white bag with some Pardon My Cheesesteak stickers. About what you would expect from a ghost kitchen. The sandwich was well-wrapped in paper, and they didn’t cheat on the portion size at all. This is where things get dicey. Pardon My Cheesesteak provided me the single greasiest item of food I have ever consumed. I was literally laughing as I unwrapped it because grease was dripping all over me and my desk. It was definitely a temptation to try and wring this thing out like a towel. Overall, just a complete mess. Maybe this is another thing that varies depending on the kitchen and location, but I have to take some big points away here.
Score: 2.5/5
Steak
Steak gets its own category because to me it’s the most important part of a cheesesteak. If the steak is bad, throw out the whole thing. And honestly, the steak on this thing was pretty good. Fairly typical. I’ve definitely had better, but I was expecting far worse than what I ended up with. A pleasant surprise here.
Score: 4/5
Overall Taste
The standard cheesesteak comes with steak, provolone cheese, cheddar cheese sauce, and onions. Full disclosure, I’m not a big onion guy and opted to order the sandwich without them. If that’s inauthentic to anyone, sorry. My big comment on the overall taste is that the cheddar cheese sauce felt like overkill. I don’t necessarily think it was bad, but it was a little too much. All things considered, this wasn’t the worst cheesesteak I’ve ever had. Again, I’m not very picky and I thought it was pretty decent.
Score: 3.5/5
Final Score
I wasn’t super disappointed by the Pardon My Cheesesteak, but I wasn’t overly impressed either. Would I buy it again? Maybe at some point, and that would probably help me figure out how consistent some of my observations are. This isn’t can’t-miss, but it’s an okay delivery option if you’re looking for a cheesesteak in a pinch.
If you are considering opening your own cheesesteak shop offline. You can use custom neon signs to make your personalized sign.
Score: 13.25/20 = 66.25/100
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