The Cheese Steak Shop

I’m not from Philly, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. But this east bay staple has been in my repertoire longer than Unilocal has been around! I was a fan back in the day… And today as well. Only now they added my favorite thing beside bacon… Aka «Guylic». That’s garlic for you amateurs in the listening audience.
I got it to go getting my staple cheesesteak Hoagie (added mayo tomatoes and lettuce. Plus had to add the garlic cloves along with spicy peppers. I ain’t no vampire nor kissing debutants 2 nite, so let’s throw in some home made tater chips with garlic.
Did I say home made chips. Holly vampire batman! I feel like Snoopy dancing through the daisies! They were ALL that AND a bag of… Well… Chips!
This may the meal for Super Bowl Sunday it’s so good, want to share the love with my peeps I guarantee would see the south university location and keep on driving!
Not in Kansas nor OC anymore toto! The Bay Area is a foodie town and you don’t last 20+ years without bringing some serious grub. So relax, eat in or take it home. Irregardless you might start toowakin like use from philly… Anywaze use gotta twy it.

Best cheese steak I’ve have. Food is always great. Employees are awesome. But the place is old they need to remodel.

Love those cheesesteaks, brings me back east. I’d give it 4 starts but when they only staff one barely able short order cook it took forever to get my cold cheesesteak. I’ll be back here again but I definitely won’t go during any meal time.

Yummy cheesesteaks! Fast service!

I’ve been coming here for 23 years. This place filled a need when my favorite spot in the Food Ghetto closed shop. It inspired me to make a pilgrimage to Philly when I was in D.C. for work.
The sandwiches are amazing, and the service is a lot friendlier than you get at a cheesesteak place that is actually in Philly.
Anybody complaining about the service been to Pat’s or Geno’s?
It’s a cheesesteak shop, not Chez Panisse.
Yes. These are California style cheesesteaks, with Philly style service. It’s still much easier than flying to the east coast, and better than I.B.‘s.
I like the 15″ spinach & mushroom with extra cheese, grilled onions, hot & sweet peppers. Add a little salt, get your loyalty card stamped and you’re set. Usually the second half of the sandwich is my next meal as well.
Vegetarian friends have helped me to learn that even their veggie sandwich is damn good, and I’m a committed carnivore.
Other good options: the cheesesteak hoagie, or fried mushrooms.
The garlic cheesesteak w/​extra cheese, onions and hot peppers is a religious experience if you can handle it, and safely smell like garlic for a day or two.

— Shadiest business I’ve been to yet in Berkeley.
Walking in, agreeing with the other reviewers, no one greets you at all.
So I go up to order and the manager heard me wrong or something and ended up charging me for the regular philly cheesesteak when I had asked for the guylic.
Long story short, he said I could pay the difference ($ 1) to change it to the guylic cheesesteak. I hand him a $ 20 and he gives me back $ 16 dollars. I asked him what’s with the short changed, he said he charged me extra garlic spinach and mushrom (1.09 for like two of those options) and said trust me… it’ll be better. At this point I was too hungry and tired to argue.
However, when I got my sandwich, it looked exactly the same as my friend’s. No extra garlic, mushroom, spinach.
When I confronted the manager about this, he snarkily hands me back a $ 1 bill. Then I demanded more money back and he nastily hands me another $ 1 bill. What the heck? I’m still short a dollar, and he refused to give more. He took my receipt too.
tl;dr Don’t trust this place. The food was not worth having the manager steal my money —-

The food is absolutely bomb, but the service is what makes the place look bad. They are very rude and disrespectful. The manager is very rude and her employees are also. They will make fun of you when you talk and they talk to you like your stupid. They also show no respect and and don’t even greet you or anything. I don’t care how good their food is I will never go here again. I’ll stick to the one in Pinole.

Little hole in the wall place that may not look like much. This place is good. I was surprised. I love the onion rings and the Italian sand. I will definitely be back.

CALL BEFORE TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE OPEN!!!
When you go out of your way to go here and it’s not open makes me not want to comeback. I don’t have time to waste.

This is a very good place to eat when you’re craving a good philly… I tried The «Guylic» sandwich for the first time and loved it i usually get the King Phillu… but I’m glad I tried something different.

It was alright. Not really that good, but not too bad either. If I was hungry and a friend was gonna grab some food and offered to pick me up something from here I’d say «yeah sure.»

In my opinion it was delicious. They’re not here to impress because their cheesesteaks do it for them. The sizing was pretty small but the pricing was reasonable since you could make it a meal with a buck more or so.
They also give you a stamp card so that you can come back to receive a free cheesesteak after your tenth visit. They also have promos for different days of the week like double stamps or you get coupons also.
There was a problem with this one homeless person. She bought her own meal but would yell and be somewhat rude about certain things. And she was a starer. As long as you stay clear of that, you’ll be fine.

Best cheese steak shop! The company is great but this is the best shop they have! I alwAys get the King Philly !!! The fries r excellent as well as the fish m chips!

Best hoggies going. I like the way they use their spatulas to tap out a syncopated beat as they brown their meat.

The only problem was not ordering enough. We got one chicken and one steak with peppers, mayo, and cheese. Delicious.
We’ll be coming back tomorrow.

After a long week of work, meaning 6 days of working tough. My lady and I was craving for Philly cheese steak. I am still very new to living in the city of Berkeley, this place is such a blessing, fresh honest clean cheese steaks, great customer service! This place definitely made my Saturday night. We highly recommend! All praises and thanks! Keep up the success.
@thanks for the extra ranch. 5 stars.

These guys are not out to impress you with their décor, flourescent lighting, or service with a smile. They are there to make you cheesesteaks. You can tell, in the way they replace all instances of the letter «F» with «PH» on their menu, that they could give a phuck, but their sandwiches are too good for it to matter.
Service: Maybe two stars. The cashier wore Uggs.
Food: I ate these things for lunch at many bodegas in New York for years. Any one from back east should be assured that they won’t be wasting their time coming here. The peppers are much better than your average deli will do for you.
I appreciated that they carry IBC root beer in the bottle. Nobody is wiping the sticky soda rings off the tables for the next customer, but the manager clearly has standards. I would come back with friends.
décor: nonexistant, unless you count the French’s mustard yellow of the menu placards. In terms of ambiance, i enjoyed the clack-​clack of the cook’s spatulas as he broke up my cheesesteak on the grill and the hollow gurgling of the ketchup fountain I sat next to.
Some may say they are expensive, but I got what I paid for.

This place has some decent cheesesteak sandwiches and a few tasty fried offerings.
I ordered the 10″ cheesesteak (~$ 7) with onions and hot peppers. I’ve never had the real deal Philly cheesesteak, but this sandwich was definitely on par with the better cheesesteaks that I’ve had. The bread was soft and soaked up the grease from the steak, the steak was juicy, and the peppers added a nice kick to taste. Like everything in Berkeley, the sandwich was overpriced. Anywhere else, the sandwich would be $ 5, but it’s $ 7 in Berkeley.
I also had an order of zucchini fries which were really good. The zucchini was nice and thick, and the breading was crispy and not overly greasy. It came with ranch as a dipping sauce, and while I’m not someone who has «reduced fat» anything, I have to say that the ranch was way too rich for me. As a result, I just ate the fries by themselves.
Overall, this place is a good greasy spoon to have on rare occasion but I wouldn’t eat there regularly.

The Cheese Steak Shop’s good if you’re looking to punish your body with food, or wish to recover from punishing your body with alcohol with punishing your body with food.
Cheese Steak Shop has a greasy-​spoon feel to it: a ton of options on the menu (I was actually surprised by how many non-​cheese steak orders there were for the folks in front of me), divey digs that fit in pretty well for that stretch of University, and a bunch of folks that just showed up looking for greasy food.
I’m surprised this place closes at nine given that the food is a pretty good match for the folks coming out of nearby bars.
The cheese steak’s solid. A healthy amount of meat, a passable roll, and the standard array of options. I don’t find myself hankering for one though, upon reflection.
I’d go back with someone, but probably wouldn’t go out of my way to go back.

Went there for lunch today with my boss; it’s been on my list to try and today was the day when that cheese steak urge could not be dismissed.
On the positive side the menu gives you a lot of options — steak or chicken, several specialty versions, add-​ons like peppers spinach and mushroom, 7, 10 or 15“sizes. You can also get a good variety of sides, three different kinds of fries, onion rings, fried mushrooms. The food was good, I had the 10″ cheese steak hoagy (comes with mayo lettuce and tomato) my boss went for the 10″ pizza version. Large steak fries and drinks came to $ 20 so not bad value for the money. Service was good but place was crowded and hectic so no cheerful banter about the weather.
On the down side the place is a little rough around the edges — according to their website it is the second one they opened back in the day and I don’t think it’s been updated since ’92 and it shows. The place could also have been cleaner as others have noted.
All that said three stars for a reasonably good riff on the classic cheese steak.