The old-school cheesesteak shop Barry’s Steaks & Hoagies is back in Roxborough with a new location — and a new generation in charge
The old-school Barry’s has a direct link to old-school Dalessandro’s. The Alpine cheesesteak, though, is an original.

There have been three major changes recently at Barry’s Steaks & Hoagies in Roxborough, which Barry and Wendy McGuinn opened in 1989.
One. Rousted in 2023 from its longtime home on Leverington Avenue by redevelopment, Barry’s reopened last month in its new location: a former insurance office across from the Planet Fitness on Ridge Avenue.
Two. It’s offering a truncated menu as the McGuinns get their bearings: cheesesteaks, onion rings, and fries. The “& Hoagies” part will have to wait several weeks.
Three. The McGuinns’ son Pat, 30, and his wife, Melissa, 29, are taking over the business as Barry, now 72, and Wendy, 69, ease into retirement.
In 1967, Barry started as a teenage grill cook for Bill D’Alessandro at Dalessandro’s Steaks, a mile away. When he left there in 1989, “we were just taking a leap,” Wendy said. The couple found a pizzeria at Leverington and Ridge priced at $10,000. “We also tried pizza in the beginning but we stopped because we were so bad at it,” she said. “We ended up giving the pizza ovens to Marchiano’s,” a nearby bakery.
Barry’s steaks are a link to Philadelphia’s traditional cheesesteaks. Grill cooks finely chop the beef, shake on salt and pepper, and lay sliced cheese atop the sizzling meat before adding it to the roll.
Only recently, at the new location at 6216 Ridge Ave., Pat decided to add seeded rolls and Cooper Sharp cheese as options — as one must these days. The McGuinns also recently switched roll bakeries from Amoroso’s to Liscio’s, so they can offer mini rolls.
It was pretty much a given that one of the McGuinns’ children would take over the business. They all have been a part of it in some way.
Take son Ben, for example. In 1994, after five years at the original shop, the McGuinns moved a few doors down to a larger space. “I was very pregnant,” Wendy said. “Eight weeks after we opened, Ben was born on a Saturday and I was back to work on Thursday. Ben took naps in an Amoroso’s roll box. He was a good baby, thank God, because I don’t know what we would have done otherwise.”
Pat started at the shop polishing chrome stools and filling soda cases after school. “I used to think it was so fun,” he said. “I would always ask to go with him, even though I knew it was past my bedtime.”
“All my family has had a little addition to the menu,” Pat said. Ben added the Bacon Benny burger. Randall developed the Ringer, a steak sandwich topped with onion rings and a golden barbecue sauce that Rose perfected. Nikki worked at the shop through college.
The shop’s signature item, the Alpine cheesesteak — topped with Swiss cheese and brown gravy — is a nod to Barry’s love of skiing, particularly his trips to the Alps, though Barry himself, who declined to speak for this article, only eats his steak sandwich with onions. “You don’t have to doctor it up with anything,” Pat said.
“There are always going to be additions, but there are never going to be changes,” Pat said. “The core of Barry’s is always going to stay exactly the same.”
When the store closed in October 2023, the McGuinns thought they would reopen by February in the new location.
As it needed to be fitted as a restaurant, “we just kept on hitting roadblocks,” Pat said. “It seemed like everything we did just didn’t really work out. We had problems with getting our hood installed and our inspections took a while, but we got through it.”
Meanwhile, the neighbors were clamoring on Facebook for Barry’s return. “Our customers are our friends,” Wendy said. “These people were so supportive. They were clapping for us when we opened. The first two days, I thought we were going to go nuts — it was so good to see their faces.”