Pardon My Cheesesteak: IHOP’s Secret Cheesesteak Side Hustle

Pardon My Cheesesteak: IHOP’s Secret Cheesesteak Side Hustle

It was almost lunchtime, and we were doing what we’ve been doing more and more lately: browsing Grubhub and looking for something affordable.

Because apparently we have to say this now: we don't want to pay $20 for something that was 40% cheaper a few years ago. And while we're at it, when did food trucks decide they were allowed to charge restaurant prices?

We were also trying to follow the Agriculture Secretary's suggestion and look for something that wasn't beef, so we eventually landed on Pardon My Cheesesteak. The Chicken Chipotle Cheesesteak was listed at a reasonable-looking $12.99.

Perfect. Maybe we'd found some cool little cheesesteak spot we hadn't heard of yet.

So we ordered it for pickup and headed out.

And that's when things got weird.

Welcome to... IHOP?

The directions took us to an IHOP.

Not "near an IHOP." Not "next door to an IHOP."

IHOP.

The map appeared to show two buildings in the strip mall, one for IHOP and one for Pardon My Cheesesteak, so we started circling the parking lot looking for the mysterious second building.

Maybe it's around the corner.

Maybe we're missing something.

Maybe Pardon My Cheesesteak is hiding in a basement like some sort of cheesesteak speakeasy.

Eventually, we pulled into the IHOP parking lot and went inside.

Someone finally noticed us.

"I'm lost."

"What are you looking for?"

"Pardon My Cheesesteak!"

"You're here."

"What?!"

Apparently, Pardon My Cheesesteak is a virtual restaurant operating out of IHOP. You don't walk into a restaurant with a Pardon My Cheesesteak sign. You walk into IHOP and ask for food from a completely different restaurant that doesn't appear to actually exist in the physical world.

At this point, we had questions.

"Have you considered putting a sign out front?"

No.

"Maybe mention on the Pardon My Cheesesteak page that it's inside IHOP?"

Nope.

Apparently, it's a secret.

We pulled up the Grubhub order to see if we'd somehow missed it. Nothing obvious.

Then we were told, essentially, "Oh, it's on DoorDash."

Well, that's helpful when we're standing inside