Geno

READER George Weber wrote that Geno's owner Joey Vento is "a businessman" and "wouldn't drive people away" - but in the very next sentence he wrote that "if people don't like sign, go elsewhere. " It seems to me that the sign IS driving people away. If I'm new in town, I see Geno's, then I see the sign, and I'm going elsewhere. Somehow, I don't see Geno's staff being "more helpful" to someone whose first language isn't English. My friend and I - both Americans and English-speaking - found ourselves at Geno's one day last summer.

HAS IT occurred to anyone that the largest Spanish-speaking segment of our Philadelphia population is not illegal Mexican immigrants but Puerto Ricans? Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. They are as American as you and me. Puerto Ricans speak Spanish; it is their native tongue - and they are Americans. Puerto Ricans spend dollars; it is their native currency. Americans come in all stripes, sizes, colors and accents. Hispanics are the largest-growing ethnicity in the United States.

Geno's, the South Philly cheesesteak stand that recently made worldwide news over its order-in-English signs, has a foreign accent after all. In a cheeky Internet posting on DailyKos.com, a Philadelphia blogger known as DebtorsPrison on Tuesday put up photos taken outside Monday night. The photos show boxes of beef bearing labels from Frigorifico Elbio Perez Rodriguez - a meat packer not in South Philly but in South America. Uruguay. "Those cheesesteaks are made from 'immigrant' beef!"

How would you like your own personal cop, someone to guard your property, shoo away undesirables and stop inside your home a few times a night to make sure you're safe? All at taxpayers' expense? That is the courtesy Philadelphia police are extending to a popular South Philadelphia steak shop. An internal memo sent to supervisors in the Third Police District a week ago orders nightly foot patrols near Ninth Street and Passyunk Avenue, "the area of Pat's and Geno's steak shops.

First there was Pat's. Then many years, and thousands of steak sandwiches later, came Geno's. And so a crossroads in South Philadelphia began to sizzle with competitive capitalism. And with time, legends about Pat's Steaks and fables about Geno's grew, even intertwined. And those who partook of their fare saw them as sparring defiantly across the dinner table of Ninth and Passyunk. Pat's called itself "King of Steaks. " Geno's produced a T-shirt, "Ace of Steaks. " Geno's put tables outside.

THAT SIGN IN Geno's window, denying cheese- steaks to anyone speaking a foreign language, is not nearly as disturbing as the sign under it: MANAGEMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE. I first ran into that sign, or variations of it, more than half a century ago in the South, when I was a GI. I found it mean-spirited then, and I still do. MANAGEMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PROVIDE SERVICE would mean the same thing, but be a little more positive. There was no question who those signs were aimed at in the South way back when.

On Tuesday, Primary Day, Barack Obama went across the street to Pat's for a cheesesteak. Same day, Hillary Clinton had a chicken cheesesteak with Italian greens in the Philadelphia suburbs. To Geno's owner Joey Vento, such decisions showed such a lack of courage that neither Democrat deserves to be president. "If they don't have the guts to come here and talk about the immigration problem ... they're not capable of running our country," he said. Tomorrow afternoon, Vento will take on Geraldo Rivera in a soldout debate on immigration at the Inquirer and Daily News Building at Broad and Callowhill Streets.

Every Philadelphian knows that at Pat's Steaks and nearby Geno's, the only way to order a cheesesteak is "wid. " But it seems that customers at the melted cheese and fried onions crossroads of the Western World also like their presidents "wid" - wid a common touch. "He did a good job," said Hector Mercado, a 27-year-old exporter who lives in Deptford, N.J., when asked about President Clinton. He stood bathed in Pat's pale yellow florescent lights as he waited in line at 9th and Passyunk.

WE IN Philadelphia take our cheesesteaks with a side order of passion. When presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry made the obligatory visit to Pat's King of Steaks a few years ago and ordered his with Swiss, it was an occasion for the city to get offended. It was tantamount to ordering a Chicago pizza without the crust, or Memphis barbecue but with ketchup instead of sauce. Now it's a cheesesteak vendor's turn to offend nearly everyone else. Joseph Vento, owner of Geno's, has created a brouhaha by posting a sign in his window telling patrons: "This is America: When ordering, please speak English.

Sixteen years ago, Jim Foster had an assistant at St. Joseph's named Geno Auriemma. Yesterday, Foster, now the head coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores, and Auriemma, who now guides the Connecticut Huskies, had a reunion at Rutgers' Louis Brown Athletic Center as each prepared his team for a battle in the East Regional of the women's NCAA tournament. "He needed a younger guy to keep him going," said Auriemma, referring to the reason why he decided to team up with Foster to guide the Hawks.

GENO VENTO , son of Joey Vento, the late founder of Geno's Steaks, says he's not selling the South Philadelphia landmark after which he was named. Yesterday we mentioned rumors that he wanted out. After unsuccessful attempts at reaching Geno, he left us a voice-mail saying "the restaurant is not up for sale. " Speaking of steaks . . . Pat's King of Steaks, across the street from Geno's, ranks 26th on Gogobot.com's list of top-50 Foodie Faves nationwide. The travel site also picked Philadelphia as No. 2 on its Destination Hot List above such international cities as Montreal, Buenos Aires and Dublin.

A judge quadrupled the bail Wednesday for the Flyers fan who allegedly instigated the attack that left a New York Rangers fan unconscious and badly injured after the Winter Classic hockey game. Dennis Veteri, 32, of Glassboro, had posted 10 percent of $100,000 bail after he was arrested last week for the Jan. 2 assault outside Geno's Steaks. After Common Pleas Court Judge Paula A. Patrick increased bail to $400,000 - the District Attorney's Office had strenuously objected to the lower amount - Veteri and his family posted an additional $30,000, and he remained free.

A FIGHT between Flyers fans and Rangers fans that landed an off-duty North Jersey cop in the hospital Monday began when the Flyers fans paid a homeless man to spray the Rangers fans with his squirt bottle outside Geno's Steaks, according to police. The fight and video of it - which have made national headlines - developed after the Winter Classic, about 7:15 p.m., outside the famous eatery at 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue, in South Philly. The brutal beatdown, in which two men in Flyers jerseys pummeled a single Rangers fan as other fights erupted around them, outraged South Detectives Capt.

The aroma of fried onions hung in the air Wednesday as the Fraternal Order of Police dedicated a plaque in front of Geno's Steaks in South Philadelphia, memorializing Joey Vento, the controversial cheesesteak magnate and philanthropist who died Aug. 23. FOP chaplain Joseph Cella gave the invocation at the ceremony, similar to those given for officers who die in the line of duty. "It seems quite appropriate in our Catholic, Christian faith, which Joey was raised in, that this, the day we commemorate all souls, we would recognize Joey," Cella said.

Joey Vento, the impresario of cheesesteaks whose "speak English" sign at his South Philly sandwich shop made him famous to some, infamous to others, died Tuesday of a heart attack. A multimillionaire who started with little more than the change in his pocket, Vento, 71, built his Geno's Steaks into an institution nearly as well known as the Liberty Bell. His arrival on the national stage came via a 2006 controversy, when he erected signs that advised his customers at Ninth and Passyunk that if they wanted to eat, they better order in English.

BILLY GARDELL. 8 p.m. Friday, Keswick Theatre. Ticket info: 215-572-7650 or www.keswicktheatre.com . MIKE & MOLLY. 9:30 tonight, Channel 3. BILLY GARDELL'S noticed a change in his stand-up act since CBS' "Mike & Molly": "There's more people there. " "I get many more people at the shows, nicer venues and nicer hotel rooms. It's a lot of fun," the longtime comic said in a phone interview last week. One of those venues: Glenside's Keswick Theatre, where Gardell performs Friday.

The outspoken Geno Auriemma has received plenty of criticism for some of his comments. But the Connecticut women's coach, who grew up in Norristown, believes there is one place where his comments go unnoticed. "In Philly, they don't care," said Auriemma, whose top-seeded Huskies defeated fifth-seeded Georgetown, 68-63, in Sunday's Philadelphia Regional semifinal at the Liacouras Center. "Those guys on [WIP-AM] 610, they hope I get hit by a bus on Broad Street. They don't care about the fact that we are in here [in the Elite Eight.]