Welcome to Big Rube’s Philly, where I spotlight hidden gems, mainstays and new things bubbling in the culture in our fair city and surrounding counties.
First up is Sorrentino’s Deli, a mainstay in Manayunk on Cresson Street under SEPTA’s elevated rail line (4631 Cresson Street). Patricia Sorrentino Westerfer’s father, Joe Sorrentino, started the business in 1980. Sorrentino’s has served the working-class neighborhood of mostly Irish, German, Polish, and Italian descent and sells hoagies, cheesesteaks, breakfast sandwiches, and cold cuts by the pound. (The corner shop is also a mini grocery, stocking essentials you’d rather not have to schlep to a supermarket to buy.)
I stumbled across the business two years ago when I opened my kitchen at Pitcher’s Pub around the corner on Main Street; I go in to buy chips and lunch and play the lottery. I always tell Patsy — and Jill Davies, who grew up in the Wissahickon neighborhood with Patsy, and has worked there for the last 10 years — that Sorrentino’s reminds me of my local hoagie shop, Ray’s Deli on 55th and Pine streets where I grew up and would always order a turkey and cheese, followed by a half pint of Breyers butter pecan ice cream.
Aesthetically, both shops feature vintage fixtures and old company logos. And both have longtime owners and workers who know the neighbors, and greet their regulars warmly. It’s like Cheers, when Norm came in — Norm! — it has that type of feel.
Patsy started working there in 1984, almost 40 years ago, and she’s seen the neighborhood change with gentrification and higher property values and new neighbors every day. Their most loyal customers, though, are the college kids and construction workers. On my most recent trip to Sorrentino’s, a couple workers came in and Patsy shouted a greeting, asking if they wanted their “regular” expertly crafted hoagies.
I get the cheesesteak — it’s not as good as my gourmet version, but it’s a really good neighborhood cheesesteak.
It’s so nostalgic. I admire that they have old photos in the dining area of the old butcher shop, John P. Miller, that was located there over 100 years ago when the train tracks were on the ground on Cresson Street. They still have the old hooks hanging from the ceiling, and the wooden shelves.
You really don’t find these old businesses anymore stocking essentials from flour, milk and eggs to cleaning products. The store opened when Manayunk was a hardworking neighborhood, before it started changing with gentrification. A lot of the new folks shop at a newer, shinier store across the street.
But Sorrentino’s has been here for more than 40 years; it’s a pillar of the community, and you know what you’re getting. It’s a mainstay — everything’s changing, and they’re still the heartbeat of the neighborhood.
West Philly born and raised with a slosh of Brooklyn New York in between, Big Rube partnered with Mitchell & Ness in 2000 to help make it a global brand marketing and selling high-end vintage jerseys. He has been photographing Philly since 2009, including in a Daily News Column from 2011 to 2017. He’s also a chef, currently at Pitcher’s Pub in Manayunk Thursdays to Sundays, selling the best handmade food in a Main Street dive bar.
