Shit Steaks
Old money, New Jersey, and a mysterious Philadelphia restaurant.
I’ve been at the house I grew up in for awhile now, clearing it out and taking care of things.
It’s both wildly strange and perfectly natural to spend so much time here, and it’s been making me think a lot about how a place — whether it’s a house, a town, a city, a state — can shape a person.
Who would I be if I hadn’t grown up in an old Victorian house in South Jersey?
What if we’d never left New York and I grew up in the city?
I found a letter in the attic that my dad had received from a company in India when I was a kid, discussing a prospective job opportunity I’d never known about. Imagine who I’d be if we’d moved to Bombay.
Maybe all of these personas exist in different timelines. It’s fascinating to think about.
Yesterday (in this timeline) I took a bunch of old money I found in the house to get appraised at a coin dealer in Philly.
It turned out not to be worth very much, but when I was looking up directions, I came across something priceless: there is a restaurant in Philadelphia called Shit Steaks.
Anyone else from the area will immediately understand the inevitability of a restaurant called Shit Steaks existing here.
This is the city that birthed such wonders as the great tradition of getting shitfaced on New Year’s Eve and staying that way until the 2nd of January, a landscaping company that doubled as a Trump administration press conference site, and the chaos demon on ice skates that John Oliver loves to talk about.
Shit Steaks is deeply Philadelphian.
It is at once uncomplicated and confounding — why are you calling your own steaks shit?
Did you mean “THE SHIT Steaks”? “No Bullshit Steaks”?
Maybe the thought of steaks excites you so much that you forgot to use any punctuation at all, but really you meant “Shit, Steaks!”
Or maybe you’re just daring the public to eat your food?
I know what you’re thinking, and no, I didn’t do it. It was 12:30 p.m. and I’m part vegetarian. I can’t imagine eating any steak in the afternoon, let alone a Shit Steak. Also, Google said it was closed.
I did, however, do a shallow dive when I got home, and as it turns out, Shit Steaks1 isn’t just some place on Market Street with a fucked up name.
It’s more mysterious than that.
Their website is actually quite earnest — its tagline is not the “Fuck Around and Find Out” that I expected. It is, in fact, “Savor the Best Steaks in Town.”
From their website:
At Shit Steaks, our mission is simple: serve the best damn steak you’ll ever eat. We use only the absolute best, locally sourced prime beef—hand-selected every single day to guarantee unmatched quality.
Also, it’s not even an actual restaurant — Shit Steaks is a pop up that’s constantly moving from one secret location to another. How synchronicitous, then, that it appeared on the map right in the area I happened to be searching.
Shit Steaks is my Brigadoon.
Of course I DM’ed them about getting a reservation.
I’m still waiting to hear back. I’ll let you know what happens.
Shit Steaks is my Brigadoon.
My overall assessment is this: the word shit here is not a value judgment but a tone. It is adjectival rather than diagnostic. It doesn’t mean the steaks are bad; it means they’re unpretentious. In fact, they’re possibly excellent, and they certainly don’t need your validation.
In other words, these steaks are 100% from Philly.
Until next time,
Tara
P.S. If anyone is familiar with Shit Steaks, please tell me all about it in the comments.
The more I type “Shit Steaks” and say it in my head, the more the words sound alien and meaningless and just plain wrong.