Born in the San Francisco Bay Area, Joe, Andy, and Tony are the Gaglione brothers that have called San Diego home for many years and are now making San Diego the new home of Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches. Upon returning from one of their many trips to the East coast to visit their father and extended Italian, more specifically, Sicilian family, the brothers had an inspiration in mind, to open a few authentic cheese steak sandwich shops right here in San Diego County.

The first Gaglione Brothers location opened in Point Loma in 2004 with much success. Their newest location opened in July 2010 in the Friars Village Shopping Center. Upon hearing so much hype about this place, I took it upon myself to go down there and scope it out with my loyal friend and sidekick, Brook Sheehan. Not too familiar with the cheese steak concept, Joe Gaglione, Owner and Operator, helps us get started with some amazing favorites from their menu: the Turk, the Mushroom Cheese Steak, the Cheez Whiz Steak and their delectable garlic fries. To kill some time while our food is being freshly prepared, I decide to interrogate Joe with some burning questions.

LC: How has business been since you opened this location over the summer?

JG: Business is great! We’ve been open for four months; it’s as busy as our first restaurant, which has been open for over six and a half years already. It’s a great neighborhood with great people. We do a lot of guerilla marketing and a little bit of social media marketing, but people are looking forward to coming in. There will be a buzz about us and as soon as we open the doors, a couple of week later business is great. We have the hospital right across the street, between that and their medical facilities there’s about 4000 employees so we kind of have a built in clientele.

LC: What has the reaction been here in San Diego? Do you find people are embracing the cheese steak concept or shying away from it?

JG: People from back east hear about it, find out about it and come down here. People born and raised in San Diego who have never had a cheese steak before come in here and love it. Good food is good food. For a sandwich shop, the business base starts with lunch, Monday through Friday, so you gotta have that. We have a lot of hot sandwiches, we serve beer, so we’re not just a sandwich place. We do great business on the weekends. We want to be a part of the neighborhood, so there has to be a good amount of residential, you need a balance of both. I want it all, I want a good lunch, I want good weekends, I want good nights, we can do it. Six million people live in this county.

LC: Do you plan on expanding beyond these locations any time soon?

JG: We’ll open one more shop in 2011, depending on how things go, maybe two in 2012. We’d like to build ten or twelve here in San Diego County. We looked really hard last year looking for this shop; two of the places we’re really interested in now are Mira Mesa and Carlsbad, but everything’s on the table, as long as we find a good location.

LC: What do you think separates you from other cheese steak places in San Diego?

JG: It’s family owned and operated, we’re as passionate about the food as we were from day one and it’s not a complicated business plan. It’s just about serving great food, now who you are, do what you do, our thing is we serve authentic Philly Cheese steaks. In fact, I have a brand new steak product coming out tomorrow and it is so good, it is so much better. We’re using a sirloin right now, but now we’re switching to a rib eye, which is exactly what they use at the most popular places in Philly. We’re even going to put more steak in all the sandwiches; it’s going to be fantastic! It’s an authentic back east Philly’s style cheese steak shop, but all the sandwiches are great and we make everything that we possibly can from scratch. We bake our own turkey, we make our own stuffing, we make a lot of our dressings, it’s a place that we love to eat in. I eat here almost every day and still enjoy it.

My friend Brook Sheehan chimes in.

BS: My co-workers are always talking about this place so my husband came over here and tried it for the first time last night. He thought it was amazing, he loved it.

Our food arrives at this point and we dig in. The Turk hits the spot, it reminds me of my Thanksgiving sandwich that I make every year with slices of turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce right where they belong, inside a roll. The Cheez Whiz is definitely like nothing I’ve ever had before, amazing flavor. After a few minutes of chowing down, I ask my friend Brook what she thinks.

BS: What do I think? This is good! I haven’t tried it with the red pepper relish yet, but…

She takes a bite…

BS: Mmmm! That’s really good!

JG: Isn’t that good? We put that on cold sandwiches, anything.

BS: That adds a whole different taste to it.

JG: It’s not spicy, it’s kind of like a pickle.

LC: These garlic fries are amazing, too, really good. I love when there’s actual chunks of garlic in garlic fries!

JG: We get a lot of feedback like “Oh my gosh, they’re drowned in garlic!” It’s a little too much for a good number of people, but we’re not about to change it.

LC: I’m dyin’ to know what the inspiration was behind the Sophia Loren?

JG: Oh, we were just having fun. She’s an Italian, beautiful actress, we have it cold and hot, so we have the hot Italian. We have the Turk, that’s named after my dad. The Father is named after my Uncle Joe, the Catholic Priest, and the meatball sandwich is my grandmother’s recipe. The General, which is the hot pastrami sandwich, was named after my grandmother. She was a tough little Italian woman, so her nickname was the “General.”

And with that, we continued with our meal and had a great time. To sum up, we went away with great food, great service and great fun. Go check them out at their two locations: 3944 West Point Loma Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92110 and 10450 Friars Rd., San Diego, CA 92120.