August 31September 7, 1995
cover story
Food Fight
Ever since Pat Olivieri invented the cheesesteak his offspring have spent as much time suing each other as they have serving up orders of "Whiz with." Can the next generation break the curse of Philly's most famous food family?
By Scott Farmelant
Pasquale "Pat's King of Steaks" Olivieri with wife Evelyn Beldner Olivieri boarding the transatlantic cruise ship The United States in 1962. (Photo from the collection of Nicole Olivieri Panter)
The grill shines under Rick Olivieri, the stainless steel flashing with each push and pull of his arm. It is a little after 3 p.m. inside the Reading Terminal Market, and Olivieri the latest cheesesteak prodigy in a line of renowned sandwich builders is winding up a day that saw 360 steaks fly off his spatula.
This is how it is supposed to be for a man born with steak in his blood. Grandad Pat Olivieri and great uncle Harrystarted the whole thing more than 60 years ago. Over the decades, the brothers Olivieri turned the original Pat's King of Steaks in South Phillyinto an institution, one that defines the town more than Tasty Kakes, soft pretzels and Champ Cherry Soda.
And now it's Rick Olivieri's turn to shine in his own place. He has ascended the family steak heap, assumed the family's fame, and is prepared to make a fortune as the owner of Rick's Steaks.
Rick Olivieri should be smiling. He is not.
No, on this gorgeous summer day Rick Olivieri wears a cautious look. His dark, intense eyes move uneasily. He's thinking of his dad, Herb Olivieri, the one-time "Prince" of steaks. The 30-year-old son is not happy.
Rick does not speak to his father anymore, not since the phone call inApril, 1994.
It was his stepmother Evelyn. She told Rick that the Olivieri's Prince of Steaks operation in the Terminal market would not be left to him as he had always thought.
It did not matter that Rick Olivieri had been slinging steaks and running the old man's shop for a decade. Neither did Rick's lifelong dream of owning the business. The eatery would be cut up three ways, said Evelyn Olivieri, with Rick's half-brother and half-sister controlling 66 percent. Rick walked out.
"I told [Herb], 'You're going to be out of business in a year,'" says Rick. "I told him so. And I told him I would take over."
In that moment, if Rick Olivieri didn't already know, he learned about life as an Olivieri in the cheesesteak business.
Like grandfather Pat before him, like great uncle Harry, like cousins Frank and Maria, and like his dad, Rick Olivieri learned that mixing family and business can be messier than a "Whiz with."
Judging from Olivieri family history, running a steak shop means years of bitter feelings, lawsuits pitting family against family and vows never to speak with blood relatives.
Ever.
Herb Olivieri closed his Reading Terminal operation in late May. Rick incorporated in June and took over his father's old business. Now Rick Olivieri hopes to guide the family name and business in a new direction, one far less combative than the trail his ancestors carved.
At the same time, his relatives down in South Philly siblings Maria and Frank Olivieri remain locked in a feud over Pat's, the most famous steak joint in town. The battle comes even after a judge settled a contentious suit/countersuit in 1994 that decided who owned the restaurant. This matter has been appealed to a higher court.
As the younger Olivieri learned, sometimes well, most of the time moneyis thicker than blood.
"In the old days, a handshake was good enough in business," says Rick. "That's the way it was. And you would think with family, that would be even more so. We prove otherwise."
They're lining up at Pat's King of Steaks on a mid-August afternoon: the construction workers on lunch break, the tourists, the moms pushing strollers. All have cheesesteak and cheese fries on their mind.
Behind the grease-smeared glass, there's Frank Olivieri, Harry's kid, standing in the same place he's been for nearly 30 years. He's piling up steaks, squirting Whiz, and dishing fried onions. Pulled away from the grill by a voice, Frank sees a friendly face and stops to chat.
"I didn't recognize you, Frankie, with the beard," laughs a mechanic wearing thick eyeglasses.
"I grew it to stay away from the loan sharks," jokes Olivieri.
A minute later, Frank invites a photographer into the tiny grill area he shares with two older men and his wife, Ritamarie. Inside, there's grease galore, especially around and atop the smoking grill. Cobwebs hang from a corner of the ceiling. Browned meat sits in a pile, waiting to be slapped into a roll.
Frank smiles for the camera and slaps his spatula around. Then his wife hears the question. No, she will not talk about the lawsuit.
"I don't think it's any of your business," growls Ritamarie. "That's a family problem. It's not anybody's business."
Minutes later, Frank echoes his wife.
"I don't want to talk with you anymore," says Frank, making a shooing motion with his right hand. "I don't want to talk about that."
Frank doesn't want to talk about why his sister Maria sued him and Ritamarie in 1991. Or why he sued Maria back in 1992.
And Maria apparently doesn't want to talk about why she sued or why Frank sued. No, the siblings don't want to discuss why they couldn't settle their differences peaceably. The lawyers are mum, too.
But the battling brother and sister don't need to speak. Trial testimony from January 1994 , court records and subsequent court rulings tell the all-too-common story. Maria and Frank fought over the division of profits from the Pat's cheesesteak cash cow, a vehicle that generates hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
The fireworks began in June 1991 when Maria told her brother she was "broke." She asked Frank for $50,000 from the Pat's partnership to fix up her home down the shore. The pair owned Pat's with their dad since 1975, but testimony showed that Frank ran the joint; Maria hadn't been around for a decade.
Court records show the confrontation between Maria and Frank took place in the hospital where their father Harry lay in bed, awaiting heart surgery. Frank testified tempers ran so hot that the siblings had to take their dispute into the hallway.
Frank told his sister the 50 grand wasn't there. He said the business needed the cash for taxes. He didn't tell her about his 1990 gross take of $389,000, according to court records.
Maria accused him of forging documents.
In the days ahead, Maria called the family accountant and learned something new: Corporate records listed her as a 15 percent partner in Pat's. This came as a shock: Under a July 1975 verbal agreement, Harry granted her a quarter share of the restaurant and kept 40 percent for himself. Frank controlled the remaining 35 percent via an earlier arrangement.
Though she had not dealt directly with the business for a decade, Maria felt she'd been shorted. She called a family meeting.
On July 11, 1991 the siblings met at their parents' home deep in South Philly on Broad Street near Oregon Ave. Harry was "fresh out of the hospital" from his angioplasty. In court testimony, Frank described an abusive Maria attacking him and his parents. Harry, said Frank, was "white as a ghost... sweating and shaking... clutching his heart" while his mother Anna was "shaking like a leaf."
Maria described the July 11 meeting as calm, without animosity.
In any event, both Frank and Maria agreed somebody made a mistake. Frank blamed the accountants, then asked Maria if they could straighten things out. He offered Maria a 35 percent share for the next decade 1992 to 2002 to make up for the 10 percent she lost in the '80s.
Frank also upped Maria's weekly check to $1,000. (Frank later claimed that he signed the agreement to stop Maria's "verbal abuse" against his father. Harry's deposition stated that Frank willingly signed the deal.)
The crisis seemed at an end. But as Maria's testimony later claimed, Frank allegedly reneged on the agreement. Further, Maria's lawyers told her that Frank owned 85 percent of Pat's his share plus Harry's. Maria sued in Dec. 1991.
The litigation proved a difficult affair. There was jostling over financial records and legal arguments. In Jan. 1992, Frank and his wife countersued.
The main issue at trial boiled down to ownership. Frank said Harry Olivieri gave him his share upon retirement in 1982. Frank also claimed Maria quit Pat's in 1981 over a dispute regarding a worker. Maria left, said Frank, and gave up her share.
To appease their father, however, Frank claimed he cut Maria into the business at 15 percent plus a weekly stipend of $500.
"My father used the words 'just take care of her,'" testified Frank, noting that Maria stopped working because her "back hurt... plus her leg."
Even though nobody signed papers, Frank said he knew Harry's share of the business was his after the old man's retirement.
"How did I know?" asked Frank. "Because I was running the business."
Frank had another reason to believe he had a right to Harry's share he testified his father told him so. And in the Olivieri family, as proved by the 1975 pact, words took the place of papers.
"My father felt there was no need for a signature," explained Maria on Jan. 3, 1994 before Judge Ethan Allen Doty in the Court of Common Pleas. "We were blood."
John Chesney and Mark Jakubik, Maria's lawyers, spun a different story from Frank's. The attorneys claimed Frank "took matters into his own hands," then duped his sister and father. The lawyers, using the testimony of J. Earl Epstein, former attorney for Pat's, outlined how Frank allegedly did it.
Epstein remembered how Harry Olivieri drafted agreements to split the business right before retiring. Epstein said he wasn't sure whether Maria ever saw the documents. Maria testified that she never read the papers before July 1991. Nobody ever signed Harry Olivieri's documents.
The trial turned when Epstein recalled a phone call from Frank Olivieri in 1981 in which he said the "contracts" were signed. Epstein testified that he told the accountants to re-draft the Pat's partnership papers after the conversation. The move cut Maria's quarter share by 10 percent and gave Frank 85 percent of Pat's.
Frank Olivieri admitted on the stand that he told Epstein about signed contracts. He could not recall which pacts he spoke of. Chesney and Jakubik portrayed Frank's phone call as a way to usurp control after Harry would not divide Pat's to Frank's liking.
At the end of the trial, Judge Ethan Allen Doty handed Maria 41.6 percent control of Pat's on March 23, 1994. Doty said Frank and Maria were bound by the 1975 agreement and the 1991 deal drawn up at Harry's house. He ordered the accountants to pay Maria 35 percent of Pat's profits until 2002, profits worths hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Ironically, Doty boosted Maria's stake in the partnership because Harry never split his share when he retired. Indeed, Harry admitted in a pre-trial deposition that he simply walked away from the business. (Harry was physically unable to testify at the trial.)
As such, Doty split Harry's share between the remaining partners Maria and Frank.
All told, Frank lost more than 25 percent of the best-known cheesesteak palace on earth in one swipe of a judge's pen.
Everybody in Philly knows Pat's story. Pasquale Olivieri had been selling hot dogs with Harry from a cart back in the depression days, maybe '30, perhaps '32, nobody is really sure.
Business wasn't so great. Neither was a diet of hot dogs and hot dogs. One day, Pat lucked out. His meat supplier gave him some steak. The Olivieris would enjoy something different.
Pat could not cook the fat slab of meat on the grill. So he sliced it thin, added some onions for taste and slapped it onto a roll. Voil, a tasty treat.
Of course, Pat never got a bite. As the story goes, a cabbie drove by, smelled the concoction, and asked, how much?
"We didn't know what the hell to charge," recalls Harry Olivieri. "Then another cab driver came by."
The brothers set the price at a nickel. The cabbies ate, left, and told friends about this great new sandwich down in South Philly. The Olivieri boys bought more steak.
Cheese hit the sandwich 20 years later when long-time employee Joe Lorenzo, sick of the usual, dropped some into the mix. Pat's legend grew. And as time passed, the cheesesteak handed the Olivieris a slice of the American dream, bigger than most people ever imagine.
The family earned money and renown, and with recognition came prestige. There's a reason why photographs of Louis Armstrong, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Durante and Joe Louis grin at the customers at 9th & Wharton. Back then, Pat's Steaks meant Big Time.
"In the '40s and '50s, Pat was the only game in town," says Joe Vento, owner of Geno's Steaks, now the top rival to Pat's King of Steaks. "He was it. He was the man."
Like anybody with a brain in their skull, Pat translated his product into wealth, then fame. He worked his butt off, mingled with the famous, and at one time, managed light heavyweight champ Harold Johnson.
All because of a sandwich that was supposed to be dinner.
Bad came with the good. Pat married three times. His children, Herb, Shari, Robin and stepdaughter Nicole, never saw much of the old man. Ditto for Harry Olivieri's kids. There were squabbles and affairs in Pat's life. While the men were off tending the 24-hour shop or hobnobbing with the likes of Jimmy Cagney, Frank Sinatra or Bill Cosby, the family stayed home.
Thanks to Pat's success, Herb Olivieri grew up in a world beyond sandwiches. He schooled at Friends Select in preparation for better things: graduation from Wharton in '56, a U Penn Law degree in '59. ''
Herb then helped form the law firm Nodler, Olivieri and Pitkow. After serving the Marines in 1963-64 as a corporal, Olivieri ran for City Council.
Herb never won that office, falling short in 1962, 1965, 1967 and 1975. In 1969, he finally captured an election, albeit as unopposed candidate for Republican leader of the Ninth Ward in Chestnut Hill.
Herb's life took him away from his father's world. In interviews, family members would not comment at length on the matter, but there are several signs that father and son grew apart.
Pat had always hoped Herb would join him in business. In a July 22, 1951 Inquirer Magazine article, Pat revealed his dream, a day soon to come when his 17-year-old son would graduate and join him as partner in a new joint, one they would call their own.
"It'll be good," said Pat. "Me and the boy, together."
It didn't happen until the mid-'60s (nobody in the Olivieri family would say exactly when Herb entered family business dealings). But Harry, Rick and Nicole Panter (Pat's stepdaughter) agree things wound up in court.
"I remember a lot of screaming and yelling and heart-clutching going on," says Panter of the fights leading up to the suit.
The suit happened "when I bought [Herb] and my brother [Pat] out," says Harry Olivieri.
It all went down in 1967 and 1968 when Pat decided to dissolve his interests. Pat planned a move to California with Evelyn and their kids. The final agreement gave Harry's family the Pat's King of Steaks joint in South Philly.
Frank paid his father $15,000 (which Harry returned to him within months) and got one-third of the partnership, with Harry holding two-thirds.
Herb took the North Philly offshoot located at 33rd and Dauphin Streets. He also got one more item from his father, very important as things would turn out: Pat's kid now owned Pat's name.
When the lawyers finished wrangling, the two families went their separate ways.
"We don't talk to Herb," says Harry Olivieri of his nephew. "I don't speak to him, he don't speak to me."
For most of his adult life, Herb Olivieri walked a path far different from his father's. In many ways, Herb seemed driven to eclipse Pat's success in a manner his father never dreamed possible.
After all, Pat Olivieri's fortune hinged on a cab driver happening by. Larry Olivieri, Herb's eldest son and an auto detail entrepreneur, says his father was driven to succeed on his own without depending upon fate.
"Pat was a freak of luck," says Larry. "That was like inventing the rubber tire, an accident. That, and the public, made him."
No, Herb would not rely on such luck. He had plans.
First there was the politics and law, then a job as head of the Attorney General's Torts Litigation Unit from Sept. 1979 to Oct. 1983 under AGs Ed Biester Jr., Harvey Bartle III and LeRoy Zimmerman.
Beyond that, Herb would one day open businesses across the Northeast. He would also save the most enduring symbol of Philadelphia, the statue of William Penn atop City Hall. And unlike Pat, he made sure that family played a large role in his life.
After his first wife Faye divorced him in Oct.1971, citing marital "indignities," Herb married Evelyn three months later on Jan. 18, 1972. He had three kids with Faye, daughter Caron along with Larry and Rick, plus Heather and Ryan from his marriage with Evelyn.
Larry Olivieri describes his father as actively involved with the kids. He says Herb took everyone away on an annual vacation, went to ball games, brought the clan to the mountains for camping, lugged everybody down the shore every summer. Rick likens his father to "the Brady Bunch dad" of television lore.
Herb also golfed, lifted weights every day to maintain a sleek 165 pounds on his 5'10" frame, and collected nice cars. (Larry recalls Herb's "black on black" Olds Cutlass Supreme Convertible.) "
On the civic front, Herb Olivieri spearheaded the drive to restore the 115-year-old statue of Billy Penn. Taking 30 hours per week of his own time in 1987, Olivieri rallied a number of prominent Philadelphians including then City Council President Joe Coleman and Channel 10 anchor Alan Frio to raise $1.5 million.
Spurred by Olivieri, the city spent $18.5 million and redid the City Hall tower. In the end, Olivieri's efforts provided $460,000 in spare funds to the Philadelphia Historic Preservation Corp.
Yet for all these successes, Herb never escaped his father's legacy. And Pat's Steaks brought massive fiscal pains to Herb Olivieri.
Herb managed the Pat's at 33rd St. and Dauphin but closed it in the mid-'80s, according to Harry Olivieri. Herb also ran a Pat's at 2nd Street and Roosevelt Boulevard (plus one in Germantown that closed, according to Larry Olivieri, due to a rash of robberies). In 1982, Herb opened the Reading Terminal Market store called "Olivieri's Prince of Steaks." (Under a territorial agreement with Harry, both sides agreed that Herb would not use the name Pat's within a 3.5-mile radius of the original shop in South Philly.)
Save for 1977 litigation in which Herb sued his uncle Harry and cousin Frank (both countersued the Inquirer described the case as a fight over derogatory comments), Herb's career as a cheesesteak hawker seemed stable.
Then in 1983, Herb franchised. He sold the family name for royalties and fees via an agreement with Pat's International (PIL). The group hired a Sears marketing guru to run the show and bought ads announcing "The Legend is Now the Opportunity."
Herb was promised a cut of the profits in exchange for the name "Pat's King of Steaks." The plan called for 75 franchises in strip malls across the U.S. by 1986, $40 million in sales and big bucks for Herb's family. The corporation would get $15,000 as an up-front franchise fee (Herb would personally get $750 from each store). Herb took another $50,000 under a territorial agreement with PIL.
The idea seemed better than gold. The chain eventually opened 13 outlets in Philly, New Jersey and Delaware, including one at the Sands Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City, which boomed. Newspaper accounts placed annual sales at $6 million.
Business on the home front was great, too. Olivieri's Prince of Steaks rang up good business it even catered the backstage spread at Live Aid in '85 despite overall woes at the Reading Terminal.
But Herb, a $60,000-per-year PIL executive, was forced out by management in May 1984, according to accounts in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. Then the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 1985, citing $4.5 million worth of debt. Bankruptcy court records indicate that quality control and management problems racked PIL. Newspaper accounts say rent and taxes went unpaid.
Herb sued over withheld royalties and vowed to get the family name back. A federal judge gave it back to him on June 25, 1986, citing PIL's breach of contract regarding royalties.
"I intend to bring honor and integrity back to Pat's," said Herb after his legal win.
The experience didn't sour Herb on franchising cheesesteaks. By September of 1987, he pushed a second plan. This time, Herb promised to "franchise the proper way."
Herb offered Pat's to the world for $30,000. Any interested party with ready money would pay four percent of gross sales from each store, plus an advertising fee worth two percent of gross. Everybody would get rich. Especially Herb.
Herb opened the first franchised Pat's at the Shops at Penn on 34th and Walnut streets. He sold licenses for a store in the Cherry Hill mall and another in Atlantic City. By April 1989, Herb had opened seven shops. He attracted the most attention when he opened a store at the corner of Park Ave. and 23rd Street in New York City, a few blocks north of Gramercy Park.
To celebrate the event, Herb hired a 32-foot limo and three Black Angus cattle, and headed up the Jersey Turnpike for a gala opening. He brought along some Mummers, ex-Phillie Larry Christenson and Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky. Before the day ended, Herb was talking up a new joint in Wildwood N.J. and a second Manhattan operation near Wall Street.
Things looked good. Just as quickly, they went bad.
On January 22, 1989 a steak cook named Herbert Saxton stabbed Henry Griffith in the chest at Pat's Steaks on Roosevelt Boulevard. Though Herbert Olivieri had no connection to the operation, the murder of a Pat's customer by a Pat's employee proved a dark omen.
By December 1990, after 18 months, the Manhattan store closed. In July 1991, Pat's at Shops at Penn was gone. On Memorial Day weekend 1995, Herb closed his last store, the Olivieri's Prince of Steaks in the Reading Terminal.
The collapse did not come as a surprise. As Herb said in Marketing Week in June 1989, the franchise business is a tough one. In New York, for example, Pat's paid $80 per square foot, plus $2 more per hour for workers than in Philly and Jersey. Pat's did battle with all the pizza joints, the Burger Kings, the KFCs. All the while, they had to worry about quality control.
"It's so easy to make a bad steak sandwich and so difficult to make a good one," Herb told Marketing Week.
Herb Olivieri's business problems created legal headaches. The law firm of Abraham, Pressman and Bauer (where Herb was listed as "Of Counsel" during the mid-to-late '80s) sued him. So did Thomas Simmons, president of the Pat's chain.
And Kravco, operator of the Shops at Penn, sued when Herb stopped paying his rent.
Court records show Herb and Evelyn Olivieri "confessed for judgment" worth $43,200 to Abraham, Pressman and Bauer in the Court of Common Pleas. The matter stemmed from a guarantee agreement between Olivieri's limited partnership, the law firm and a $100,000 commercial note issued by Continental Bank in April 1988.
Court records also show a $25,800 judgment for the Shops at Penn.
Olivieri, his wife and the lawyers would not discuss the litigation with City Paper.
Herb Olivieri was injured in a bicycle accident in Chestnut Hill in Aug. 23. The Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania admitted him the same day. Despite extensive injuries, Olivieri agreed to speak with City Paper on Aug. 24. Then his wife said no.
"With my husband in recuperation, this isn't a good time for us," said Evelyn Olivieri. "We need to be involved with uplifting, positive things. I've made the decision that [an interview] would be too much for him."
Evelyn Olivieri referred City Paper to Marty Pitkow, a lawyer and old friend of Herb's going back to UPenn law school, for comment. But when contacted, Pitkow refused to speak.
"I am instructed not to talk to you," said Pitkow.
"I don't think anybody wants to talk about this," comments Craig Tractenberg, managing partner with Abraham, Pressman & Bauer, regarding the litigation between his firm and Herbert Olivieri. "It's ancient history."
"It's very cruel to be doing a story on him," adds Bob Bauer, a partner with the firm.
Despite their rift, Rick Olivieri expresses sadness at his father's franchising woes.
"It's a shame," says Rick. "Many people have tried [the cheesesteak] concept, but it won't work without knowledge. It takes real dedication. It's not like a McDonald's where you just slap a burger on the grill. It takes skill."
Further, Herb Olivieri's legal career seems at a standstill. He has not been associated with his latest law firm, Hwang & Nix, for several years. The Philadelphia Bar Association lists Herbert Olivieri, age 60, as inactive.
Frank and Maria Olivieri's legal battle didn't end with Judge Doty's ruling. Appeals were filed and denied, then post-trial motions followed. Now the latest documents found in court show a feud lingering in South Philly with Pat's future at stake.
On July 24, Doty ordered Maria and Frank Olivieri to "immediately deposit ... any and all receipts of the partnership" into the business bank account. In addition, Doty ordered Maria to deposit partnership funds on "a daily basis" whenever she worked and to provide Frank with deposit slips to prove the money was going into the bank account.
In an interview on Aug. 29, Judge Doty said he could not locate the motions that led to his July 24, 1995 order. But Doty said the matter, which has been moved to appellate court, involves ongoing "money problems" at the restaurant.
"We're trying to keep the place open," says Judge Doty, who notes he is done with the case and any future arguments will be in front of another judge
While Judge Doty determined that Frank denied Maria her fair share of the business last year, Maria's attorneysalso showed that Frank Olivieri profited handsomely from Pat's.
Court documents show that in 1982, for example, Frank took $121,000 out of partnership accounts; in 1987, $160,400; and in 1990, $389,500. His take between 1980-92 came to $3.3 million.
For her part, Maria grossed $428,500 in the same period.
Money wasn't the only matter at issue in the case. In 1982, Frank and Ritamarie paid $50,000 for the 901-903 Wharton Street property. Maria told the court she didn't know about the deal. Frank called it his "ace in the hole," according to testimony. He allegedly threatened Maria that he would close Pat's, then open his own steak joint on the famed corner, unless she did what he wanted.
Maria complained that her father always wanted the business to own the property. Frank later took in more money by upping Pat's rent from $400 per month to $3,000 per month between 1981 and 1994.
During the litigation, other nasty accusations surfaced about Pat's. Dolores Olivieri of Roxborough testified that Maria didn't lift a finger at Pat's. She said Maria was out on "disability" since 1981 and never came to Pat's "except to come over and take some food out."
"If [Maria] walked by now, I wouldn't recognize her," comments Joe Vento of Geno's Steaks in an interview. "I don't even know if she knows anything about the business. Frank worked it. I haven't seen her work it. All I know is they're having big trouble over there. Over money."
Perhaps the strangest aspect of the trial found Maria supporting the oldest and nastiest rap against Pat's King of Steaks. Just as Vento and many South Philly residents have been saying for years, Maria testified Pat's was a dump.
She testified workers smoked in the back room. She said the counters were often dirty. She claimed nobody picked up the empty soda cups.
"I told [Frank Olivieri Jr.] that we don't need any more violations," testified Maria. (The city Licenses & Inspections Department did not provide Pat's past health code records. L? reports Pat's has no outstanding violations.)
Maria also claimed that spilled peppers sat on the sidewalk outside the place, often for hours at a time, creating the possibility for slip-and-fall law suits. (Pat's has been the target of at least five such legal claims, the latest coming in July 1991, according to City Hall records. All five were settled out of court.)
A worker at Geno's says Pat's has trouble with cleanliness.
"We get in trouble for things we don't clean," says the worker. Vento "is kind of paranoid. He doesn't ever want it to be like across the street."
"You can eat off the floor in here," says Vento of Geno's.
For all the trouble the sibling suit has caused, Frank Olivieri might have opted to settle had he known the extent of his sister's willingness to litigate.
Maria Olivieri filed suits against motorists following 1981 and 1988 vehicular accidents. She filed suits in 1982, 1984, 1988 and 1990 against at least five insurance companies. In 1990, she sued Sigismondi Foreign Car Specialists over repairs made on her 1984 928 S-model Porsche. (Larry Olivieri recalls Maria's license plate on the Porsche as "ONE WITH.")
In 1987, Maria sued a couple who owned a home on South Broad Street next door to a property she owned but left unoccupied. Maria claimed the couple made home improvements that were "to the detriment" of her property value. Later that year, Maria sued the couple again, claiming the wife ordered a Doberman Pinscher named "Capone" to bite her. Both suits were dismissed.
Then there were Maria's 1989 suits against her ex-attorneys Paul Michael Benn, Peter Kretzu, and H. Allen Litt. The trio had worked for Maria at one point regarding an early-'80s auto accident. Maria claimed the lawyers poorly represented her injuries.
Maria sued "any attorney who ever represented her on the accident," says Litt, noting the litigation died for lack of prosecution.
City Paper could not reach Maria Olivieri for comment.
"I don't know where Maria is," says Anna Olivieri, Maria's mother and Harry's wife, in a telephone interview. "Her girlfriend said she went shopping in New York."
Court records show that most of the suits Maria filed were either settled out of court or dismissed. Olivieri did, however, receive compensation from motorists in both of her auto accident suits, won $7,000 from Prudential Property and Casualty Insurance Co. and lost another auto accident case at arbitration to Kemper Insurance Co.
Rick Olivieri vows his business is going to be different, better than Pat's and better than his dad's. His will be sound and sure.
"In the old days, everything was played by ear," says Rick, who carries a briefcase complete with account sheets, calculator and financial documents. "Now everything is done by percentages, profit & loss statements, food costs."
A March 1994 Restaurant Hospitality article reveals Rick's attention to detail. He showed the publication how he held food costs to 23 percent, used Angus beef, served top-of-the-line Amoroso rolls.
Unlike Pat's, Rick cooks every steak to order. He prepares two sandwiches per minute during peak rush in an assembly line operation. The cashier takes orders and money. Rick whips up the sandwiches. A third person handles the fries; a fourth cleans.
Rick, who reopened the eatery in June, expects to gross $400,000-plus in in his first year.
This is a far cry from April '94 when Rick abandoned the business.
"I was always told [by Herb] that I would be the next generation," says Rick. "I, quote, 'thought' I was owner-operator with my dad. It was devastating. Olivieri's was going to be my career, going to be for the fourth generation to take over. This was the only thing on my mind since I was 14."
"To have your dreams cut off by one telephone call... you bust your ass for years and years and years and your life is cut from underneath you," continues Rick. "You're falling without a parachute."
Rick left without a job, without a future, with a wife and two kids to feed. He wound up at Boston Chicken for a while but struggled working under managers that knew less about restaurants than he did. He also spent months without an income.
But he waited and watched his dad's place. He knew that without his leadership and the regular crew (several employees at Olivieri's Prince of Steaks quit after Rick left), the place would falter.
"Rick's father didn't take care of the place," says Harry Ochs, owner of Ochs Prime Meats in the Reading Terminal Market.
"What is [Herb], a lawyer and a politician?" laughs Joe Vento, owner of Geno's. "What does he know about steaks?"
A Jan. 1989 photograph in the Daily News best sums up the Herb Olivieri paradox. It shows Herb and former Mayor Wilson Goode frying up some steaks. Both wear white aprons over pin-stripe suits with power ties. A sweaty Rick is pushed to the side. Both Goode and Herb look very out of place.
Now at his own helm, Rick says leaving was "for the best." His brother Larry promises that Rick's Steaks will boom.
And if anyone knows this, it is Larry Olivieri. After all, he could have been Rick, but wanted no part of the steak sandwich racket.
"After a few years in the food business outside the family I realized how much I hated" the restaurant business, says Larry, who is 32.
Today, Larry owns and operates Rittenhouse Auto Salon, what he calls "the Le Bec-Fin" of auto care shops in Philly. Larry jokes that Rick drives a Volkswagen Fox with the license plate "CHZSTK." The older brother says there's a reason.
"You've got to know what you're doing and Rick does," says Larry Olivieri about the steak business. "Ever since he was a little kid, his dream was to own his own place. He's one of the best steak slingers out there."
So the son has taken his place as heir. But the son doesn't speak with his father, the man he loves. The Olivieri clan is divided anew. It hurts.
"Ever since I left, it's been rocky roads" with Herb, says Rick, his face turning hard.
"Whenever there are problems like the ones that have affected us, it's a tragedy," says Larry Olivieri. "It's a tragedy."
At the Reading Terminal, Rick is wiping down a prep area. The phone rings. It's his wife Debbi, calling to make sure he brings home milk, butter, eggs, veggies, meat, plus other staples for daughters Kristin, 9, and Chelsea, 3.
"I love you," says Rick before hanging up, then jokes with his guest. "That's the problem with being here in the market," he says.
Soon, Rick thinks of his father. He thinks about the phone call, about broken dreams.
"From what happened to me with my father, I learned that you do one thing in life," says Rick Olivieri. "You look out for A number one, your wife, your kids."
Words come haltingly. Pain slows the delivery.
"If a handshake isn't good enough... " says Rick.
His voice trails off. His hands rise slowly to a what-are-you-going-to-do? position. He thinks for several seconds, then completes his sentence.
"...then life isn't worth shit."