Dennis McCausland still remembers the first of countless visits to Jim’s Steaks, when he was a 12-year-old tagging along with his older brother, as well as the first cheesesteak he ordered: whiz, without, and ketchup.
He also remembers his last visit to the South Street landmark, when he arrived to find the building engulfed in flames.
“I was getting ready to go in, and they were like ‘no, you can’t,’” the 40-year-old told Billy Penn on Wednesday. “I was like, ‘are you kidding me?’ It was devastating, man.”
The fire occurred on July 29, 2022, when faulty wiring in the building’s HVAC system sparked a blaze that quickly spread throughout the two-story restaurant on the corner 4th and South Street.
Just under two years later, McCausland joined hundreds in a block-long line that had formed outside of Jim’s Steaks well before Wednesday’s 4 p.m. reopening.
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The reopening of Jim’s Steaks on South Street drew a large crowd on Wednesday afternoon. (Ali Mohsen/Billy Penn) -
The line outside of Jim’s Steaks, an hour before opening. (Ali Mohsen/Billy Penn) -
Over an hour before its 4 pm reopening on Wednesday, a block-long line had already formed outside of Jim’s Steaks on South Street. (Ali Mohsen/Billy Penn) -
The view from the end of the line an hour before the reopening of Jim’s Steaks on South Street. (Ali Mohsen/Billy Penn)
Damage from the fire had extended to the adjoining building which, since 1968, had housed iconic folk-art store Eyes Gallery, owned by Julia Zagar and her husband Isaiah, whose renowned mosaic artwork had decorated much of the shop’s interior. Last year, Jim’s Steaks owner Ken Silver bought and incorporated the Zagar’s storefront as an additional seating area for the eatery his father opened in 1976.
“It’s new beginnings,” Khari-Wallace Bey, assistant manager at Jim’s Steaks told Billy Penn shortly before Wednesday’s relaunch. Now 32, he’s been with the company since 2018, working his way up from maintenance to cook to management.
“[Ken] came back, he called us, and now we’re here,” he said, “about to make it happen.”
First at the door, Stephen Rosselli told Billy Penn he’d been waiting since 1 p.m., while a few spots down the line, Denise Adams, 65, said she had taken two buses and the subway to get to Jim’s from North Philly.
“I’ve been coming here forever, I couldn’t wait for them to reopen,” Adams said, adding that she needed to call her brother to ask how many steaks to bring back home.
Brandon and Ryane Ennals made a family trip of the reopening, driving in from Delaware with their three young sons who had never been to Jim’s before.
“This was the first place I came to get a cheesesteak when I was 15 years old,” Ryane said, “So, this is like a rite of passage for our kids.”
“I’ve heard them talk about this place so many times,” their son, Tucker, said, “So, just being here is nice.”
Not usually a fan of unchopped onions, Leigh Ann Baka, 33, said she’d be making a compromise for a cheesesteak she plans on splitting with her co-worker. Longtime fans of Jim’s, the two had come in from West Philly for the opening.
“We together are really excited to see what they’ve brought in from the art gallery, and what they did with [Isaiah’s’] work,” Baka said.
While the original Jim’s structure has maintained its black and white tile aesthetic, the newly expanded spaces — a ground floor ADA-compliant entry through Eyes’ former storefront and second-floor seating areas — are a showcase of Isaiah Zagar’s mosaic works, some pieces painstakingly preserved.
Much of the work was carried out by the team at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, founded by Isaiah Zagar, with preservations manager Stacey Holder overseeing the removal, cleaning, and reinstallation of the hand-made tiles. The aim was to reincorporate as much as they could “of the preexisting elements just to keep that spirit alive,” she said, “the Eyes gallery spirit, the Zagar spirit, the South Street spirit.”
Some of the preserved tiles are back in their old spots; other, newer pieces bear commemorative details of the 2022 fire and tributes to the firefighters who put it out.
“It was an awful moment, we didn’t know what it would be,” Isaiah Zagar told Billy Penn of the resulting damage. Seeing the combined efforts of Ken Silver and the Magic Gardens team in salvaging the space and his work, he said, has left him with “so much gratitude.”
“Two years it took, and it’s really something,” he said.
400 South Street | 11 to 1 a.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 to 3 a.m. Friday to Saturday | Cash only | (215) 928-1911
