\n<\/p>\n
Benjamin Franklin, the consummate colonial wanderer, once observed that home was not just a place, or a thing, or a food. \u201cA house is not a home,\u201d he said, \u201cunless it contains fire for the mind, as well as the body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Centuries later, J.P. Teti, Philadelphia\u2019s own accidental ambassador to England, has learned this, too: A city \u2014 nay, a people \u2014 cannot survive on cheesesteak alone.<\/p>\n
If the seat of American power in London resides at the embassy, a good chunk of its spirit can be found on Cleveland Street in central London, sandwiched between traditional British architecture, in the shape of a gritty Philly dive bar: Passyunk Avenue, named for South Philly\u2019s famous thoroughfare.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
To step inside is to be transported. Pendants from Philadelphia schools frame the windows; T-shirts and jerseys hang from the rafters. Dollar bills with scribbled signatures paper the walls. Among London\u2019s many manufactured American bars, Passyunk Avenue stands apart for the simple fact that it isn\u2019t a gimmick.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The brainchild of Mr. Teti, the bar is a Mecca of sorts for American sports fans far from home. Cozy, raucous and drawing heavily from Philly\u2019s (in)famous sports obsession, Passyunk Avenue caters to nearly anyone hoping to watch mainstream American sports. But it has cornered one emerging market: the N.F.L., which is surging in popularity among international audiences<\/a>. Commissioner Roger Goodell has said he is hopeful that the league might expand abroad<\/a> and, someday, even see a Super Bowl played in Europe.<\/p>\n Such lofty aspirations, though, feel eons away from the comfortable perch of a Passyunk Avenue bar stool this week, days before the Philadelphia Eagles march into a championship rematch with the Kansas City Chiefs. Sitting among tchotchkes and trophies, it\u2019s not really about football, or cheesesteaks. It\u2019s never really<\/em> been about any of that.<\/p>\n Mr. Teti remembers exactly where he was in January 2018, just before Philadelphia\u2019s last (and first) Super Bowl victory: sore and despondent under a rail arch in southeastern London, packing up his fledgling cheesesteak truck for good.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The truck had been a brief experiment for Mr. Teti, who grew up split between Southern New Jersey and South Philly, where he had a gaggle of Italian cousins, before moving to London for work. Convinced he could win the city over, he walked away from his corporate job in 2016 on the gamble that Brits might come around to the gloppy appeal of Philadelphia\u2019s famed sandwich.<\/p>\n But slinging steaks out of a trailer hadn\u2019t fostered the community Mr. Teti had hoped for.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t what I imagined,\u201d he recalled thinking at the time. \u201cI want to move it away from being cheesesteaks. We\u2019re going to create a cultural outpost in the form of a Philly dive bar.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the many pubs in central London, an authentic dive couldn\u2019t feel farther. That hasn\u2019t stopped plenty of pubs from trying, but the efforts often feel like a Disneyland American Legion. Lost are the time-tested details, only missed once they\u2019re an ocean away: Flickering neon. Football in the background. Gummy stools and brash takes from chatty strangers.<\/p>\n These small touches are taken seriously in Philadelphia, where dive bar culture<\/a> predates the country itself<\/a>, and words like \u201cgrit\u201d and \u201cgrime\u201d are less disparagements than badges of honor. (An Atlantic City bar once sued Philadelphia magazine after a reviewer called it a \u201cdive.\u201d According to the magazine\u2019s editor<\/a>: \u201cThis is a case of a place that can\u2019t take a compliment.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At the risk of dumping tea in the proverbial harbor: Pub culture just isn\u2019t the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With a renewed sense of purpose, Mr. Teti rented a space in the Fitzrovia neighborhood of London and opened its doors in March 2018. The business, known as Liberty Cheesesteak Company when it was run out of a truck, was rebranded as Passyunk Avenue after South Philly\u2019s main artery, where Rocky Balboa trained and where Pat\u2019s and Geno\u2019s (overrated<\/a>) cheesesteak houses still wage their generational war. Mr. Teti had bought the name as a website domain on a whim years before.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not selling cheesesteaks. It\u2019s always been about, for me, sharing the cultural inheritance that made my upbringing special,\u201d Mr. Teti said, hunched at a wooden table at Passyunk Avenue\u2019s Fitzrovia location. It is now one of three \u2014 soon to be four \u2014 locations, all of which have waiting lists hundreds deep for Sunday\u2019s game, despite the 11:30 p.m. local kickoff time. This Super Bowl is a lot different here, now, than it was in 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really shouldn\u2019t have survived six months,\u201d Mr. Teti said of his bar, chuckling. \u201cBut it did.\u201d<\/p>\n Passyunk Avenue is not just about cheesesteaks, and, as Mr. Teti and any lifelong, righteously bitter Philadelphia fan would tell you, the Eagles aren\u2019t just about football. The Lombardi is more Holy Grail than trophy, the end of what can only be described as a torturous emotional pilgrimage. Indeed, the Eagles are less pastime than religion, as inherent to the city\u2019s collective identity as Benjamin Franklin, as soul music, as a citywide<\/a> served from a scratched-up counter on Two Street.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Teti\u2019s bar is a dutiful disciple. It hoards late-night licenses to solve the time difference problem for after-hours American games. The bar found a Dutch butcher who can slice the steak the right way, and developed its own Whiz when British food codes wouldn\u2019t let the real(?) stuff in.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very specific Americana, you know what I mean?\u201d said Jessi Riley, a South Jersey native and head of culture for the franchise. \u201cThis is Philly, through and through.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Passyunk Avenue has star-studded bona fides. The Kelce brothers, including the retired Eagles center Jason, once recorded their popular \u201cNew Heights\u201d podcast from the bar<\/a>. The Phillies manager, Rob Thomson, stopped by to pull pints<\/a> when the team played a series in London last year. Brent Celek, the retired Eagles tight end, once partied there with the Lombardi Trophy<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Passyunk Avenue\u2019s real credentials are its walls, with not a bare inch in sight. It is a sea of the familiar: Scribbled messages like \u201cDELCO\u201d or \u201cWooder from the crick,\u201d in homage to Philly\u2019s famously tricky accent. A South Jersey marching band jacket. A reusable Wawa shopping bag, perfectly crumpled as if pulled from a back seat and tacked to the wall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u2018We\u2019re not a sports bar. We\u2019re a dive bar.\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018This is Philly, through and through\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n