{"id":148039,"date":"2026-03-25T13:59:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/148039\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T13:59:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:59:06","slug":"philadelphia-responds-to-unpaid-tsa-worker-plight-with-world-record-for-the-longest-cheesesteak-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/148039\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia responds to unpaid TSA worker plight with ‘world record for the longest cheesesteak in history’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Travelers<\/a> passing through Philadelphia International Airport on Monday may have expected long security lines. But the longest line was made of cheesesteaks.<\/p>\n

Organizers say they achieved a new Guinness World Record for the longest line of cheesesteak sandwiches, with 1,291 lined up inside a departure hall to mark National Cheesesteak Day. The display far surpassed the previous benchmark of 500 sandwiches.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went for the world record for the longest cheesesteak in history,\u201d said Clarence LeJeune of MarketPlace PHL, a company that operates airport concessions. \u201cToday we accomplished that goal here in Philadelphia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cheesesteak, which originated in Philadelphia in the early 1900s, is widely considered the city\u2019s signature food. LeJeune called it \u201csynonymous\u201d with Philadelphia, alongside its sports culture.<\/p>\n

People in black aprons assembled cheesesteaks along tables set up in the walkway between Terminals B and C, filling rolls from silver buckets as they moved past storefronts.<\/p>\n

After the record was certified, volunteers handed out the sandwiches to travelers, airport workers and Transportation Security Administration staff, who have been\u00a0working without pay<\/a>\u00a0during the government shutdown.<\/p>\n

LeJeune joked there are few hard rules for cheesesteaks, which is part of the \u201cbeauty of the experience\u201d \u2014 except, he said, \u201cYou don\u2019t ask for Swiss cheese,\u201d referencing a 2003 moment when then-presidential candidate John Kerry\u00a0drew criticism in Philadelphia<\/a>\u00a0for ordering one with Swiss.<\/p>\n

Michael Empric, a Guinness World Records adjudicator, said rules require all food used in record attempts to be eaten or donated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, they are going to TSA agents who definitely could use some lunch,\u201d Empric said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travelers passing through Philadelphia International Airport on Monday may have expected long security lines. But the longest line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3855,9274,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-148039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-airport","tag-food-and-drink","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}