HOURS
MONDAY - SATURDAY
10AM-9PM
Feeling hungry? Peckish? Famished? We're here to feed your need. We're serving up fresh made, mouth-watering and devotion-worthy Cheesesteaks, Hoagies, Sandwiches, Burgers, Salads and more.
All cheesesteaks served on a fresh Italian roll.
CHOOSE SIZE
7" SHORTY $8.99 . 10" MEDIYUM $12.99 . 16" BIGGY $16.99
CHOOSE TYPE
CHOOSE TYPE
CHOOSE EXTRAS
All hoagies served on a fresh Italian roll!
CHOOSE SIZE
7" SHORTY $8.99 . 10" MEDIYUM $12.99 . 16" BIGGY $16.99
CHOOSE TYPE
EXTRAS
Or call in your to-go order and we'll have it ready, Freddy. (All non-Freddy's are encouraged to call as well.)
1253 Nimmo Parkway #112
Virginia Beach, VA 23456
(757) 689-4526
webringtheyum@phillycoldcuts.comOr visit our flagship location
315 N Great Neck Road #136
Virginia Beach, VA 23454
(757) 463-5657
webringtheyum@phillycoldcuts.comCarrying on the tradition. Starting a new chapter.
By the mid-late 1970’s Louise Fuller had been making cold cut sandwiches for her children’s school lunches for years. In a perfect world, one of the sandwiches would be made without cheese…that one was specifically for Bryan aka “Stephon”. If there was a mix-up and he mistakenly got one with cheese…he would sell his sandwich to Wallace Drake for $0.75. Brother Jeff, on days he preferred to have a hot school lunch, would sometimes sell his sandwich too, ironically, to Wallace’s younger brother, Troy.
Louise Fuller
Louise’s husband, Navy Chief George Fuller, was approaching retirement. Many of his fellow servicemen were growing tired of the usual sandwich selections available in the squadron convenience store. Fuller was vaguely aware that his sons were sometimes selling their school lunch sandwiches and figured he could do the same. The elder Fuller offered to bring in a few of the delicious, assorted-meat delights for the guys to try out. These were the same sandwiches his wife, Louise, made for their children.
George Fuller
The sandwiches “tested well” and the squadron began to order them for daily delivery to the Oceana Naval Base. The kitchen at the Fuller home turned into a production house for ham & cheese, tuna, egg salad and steak sandwiches on kaiser rolls delivered daily to the Oceana and eventually Norfolk Naval Air Stations. This continued, on and off, for a few years, even while Chief Fuller went off on his last Navy cruise before retirement.
In March 1980 George Fuller purchased Philadelphia Cold Cuts in the Great Neck section of Virginia Beach from Bob Cohen with a handshake deal. Three months later, in June of 1980, George Fuller officially retired from the Navy after 26 years served. At that same time 3 of his 4 sons, Thomas, Stephon & Jeff started working there full-time. Youngest son, Todd, joined the force around 1986.
George Fuller didn’t have any restaurant experience to speak of, but that didn’t stop or slow him down one bit. Mr. Fuller was born with an entrepreneur’s spirit handed down from his parents and extended family.
Louise Fuller was an ever-present figure at the restaurant and instrumental in ushering in the 7-foot party sub.
Jeff Fuller - Philadelphia Cold Cuts - Shore Drive location, around 1986.
Over the years, 3 of the 4 sons left the company to pursue other interests. Thomas lived in the Czech Republic for nearly a decade before returning stateside. Bryan aka “Stephon” moved to New York in ‘95 and onto Los Angeles in ’98 to pursue a career as an actor where he currently resides. Youngest brother, Todd, stayed in the Hampton Roads area and worked in cyber security. Jeff has been with the company from the very earliest days…except for a 2 week period in high school when he ran away from home because, “he was tired of working so much and wanted to hang out with his friends more often”. He later returned after some “soul-searching” and has been with the company every single day since.
Althea, Thomas, Bryan aka "Stephon", Louise & George Fuller - 1966
Through the 1980’s Philadelphia Cold Cuts had a few different locations including one at the oceanfront for a few years, another on Shore Drive and for 28 years, beginning in 1987, operated on King Street in the London Oaks section of Portsmouth. In November of 2002, Louise Fuller lost her battle with cancer and has been greatly missed by family, customers and pretty much anyone she encountered.
CUT TO: January 2017
78 Conference calls…
In late January of 2017 a commercial real estate agent that Jeff had looked at a few properties with a year prior came into Philadelphia Cold Cuts to get a bite to eat. Jeff asked her if she had any real estate in her portfolio that he might be interested in. She did and sent him a few photos of the space. The next day he drove over to take a look at the unit in the Red Mill section of Virginia Beach and felt it was perfect for what he had in mind.
A few days later there was a 3-way call that included Jeff, Thomas & Stephon. The topic was opening a new location. It wasn’t going to be another Philadelphia Cold Cuts. It was going to be “Philly Cold Cuts”, which was a lot like the former, but with a new, fresher attitude and more refined look. It was a great, productive 90-minute conference call.
Several days after that another very progressive call included youngest brother Todd. Even though the siblings hadn’t ever worked together professionally, something really special seemed to be in the air. Four brothers, with varied backgrounds and life experiences, coming together to complete a project. Seemed simple enough, but oldest brother Thomas lived hours away in Northern Virginia, Stephon resided in Los Angeles pursuing his acting career and Todd, while local, had a family and a career in cyber security.
Right away things started moving at a rapid pace. Within a week the “Philly Cold Cuts” domain name was purchased, company email addresses were set up, along with acquiring a business license and a business banking account.
Thomas put us on a set schedule for conference calls 3 times a week, Sundays at 10am and Tuesday/Thursday at 6:30pm.
Next we started looking for a way to get a logo created. Jeff briefly mentioned a local creative agency. It seemed expensive at the time, plus he couldn’t get a meeting with them for a few weeks. So we moved forward with bidding with graphic designers online. Funny enough, we settled on guy that was…let’s just say he wasn’t local. He was based in Romania…we don’t think he knew what a Philly cheesesteak was. We went back and forth for a few weeks with designs from him we sort of liked, mainly because it made us feel like we were “doing something”.
Anyway, 2 weeks later, Jeff, unbeknownst to himself, had a reminder on his phone set about the meeting with the “expensive”, local creative agency. He hadn’t really planned to attend the meeting…and wasn’t even sure how the reminder got on his phone, but he also didn’t want to be “a flake” in business.
Fortunately, he opted to not be “a flake in business” and decided to attend the meeting.
What resulted was his mind being completely blown by the team at Red Chalk Studios. We had already invested a few hundred dollars into the online graphic designer guy, but we were willing to cut our losses and move forward in a much more professional manner with Kim and the team at Red Chalk Studios. This was, without question, one of the smartest investments we’ve made in business. The result was a logo design and colors with a very professional look and feel that will take us far into the future.
7 months and 78 conference calls later on August 10th 2017 we opened the doors to the public at the Red Mill location. All of the weeks and months that Jeff spent standing on the side of the road waving to people in their cars with a “Coming Soon!” sign paid off! It was a very successful and busy opening.
NASA to Cheesesteaks!
March 1st 2018. Today is the day Todd plans to put in his 2-week notice to resign from his position in cyber security at NASA’s Langley Research Center. He’s quite nervous. They have treated him very well and he’s learned a lot while working alongside such bright minds. He also knows that he has a chance to be a part of putting in motion what he, Jeff and Stephon have talked about for years and years concerning the family business.
It’s Tuesday March 13th2018, George Fuller’s birthday, and also the day that Philadelphia Cold Cuts officially changed ownership from the father to his sons and became Philly Cold Cuts. Less than 24 hours later the new sign for the building was ordered to begin the transition to Philly Cold Cuts. That followed with new booths, tables, chairs, sound system, exterior window treatment, point of sale system, etc. Two days later was Todd’s last day at NASA. He had been helping out at the Red Mill location, but now he was going to be full time with us running the Great Neck operation.
So far things have been going well.
In April 2019 the Virginian-Pilot voted Philly Cold Cuts as having “The Best Cheesesteak in Hampton Roads”. Area chefs known on Facebook as Team Fat Kid also voted Philly Cold Cuts as having The Best Cheesesteak area-wide and few months prior.
Stephon has been spending more time than normal here in Virginia Beach from his base in Los Angeles and Tommy consults on a variety of things. The current plan is to continue to make the best Philly Cheesesteaks in the area, treat our guests as family and build something that would make our mom proud.