East comes West

Melissa Iemelanov has been in Dayton since October, and as much as she likes it, there are things she misses about her home town of Williamsport, Pa., a few hours north of Philadelphia.

The food, for instance.

Like anyone from Eastern Pennsylvania, there's nothing like an authentic Philly cheesesteak, which seemingly can only be made correctly by the same folks that invented hot pretzels with mustard.

"I don't miss Pennsylvania at all, except for the food," she said.

Out here, restaurants pass off roast beef with cheese melted on it for Philly cheesesteaks, but Iemelanov knows that to make it real, the meat has to be ribeye steak cooked to perfection, with the customer's choice of provolone, cheddar, Swiss or pepperjack cheese.

"The way they make them out West is almost embarrassing," she said. "They chip out roast beef and throw cheese on it and call it a Philly. I worked at a lot of places out West, and what they call a Philly is not a Philly."

So she started Melissa's East Coast Subs, Aug.1, in the East 50 Bar at 211 Frontage Road in Mark Twain, and has been churning out the classic subs ever since.

"We use 100 percent choice ribeye and provolone cheese, but they are pretty much custom made," she said, adding that customers can have their favorite type of cheese.

In addition to the classic Philly cheesesteaks, she offers cosmos, which are toasted subs - either ham, turkey, tuna or Italian, along with grinders, which is the Boston term for sub sandwich. In Philly, they call them hoagies.

She also offers a variety of burgers and fresh-cut French fries, and a Pittsburgh salad, complete with steak fries and ribeye.

Nevada isn't the only place they don't know how to make Philly cheesesteaks. She and her husband, Iaroslav, a native of the Ukraine, spent seven years in Cripple Creek, Colo., trying to get a Philly cheesesteak place going.

"We moved there in 2000, but I got tired about not being able to get an East Coast-style sandwich," she said. "I was going to do this in Colorado, but it fell through, so I came to Nevada. I've always wanted to be out West and be able to eat East Coast food."

When she chose to start her East Coast-oriented restaurant at the East 50, she knew she would struggle going it alone, so she flew her mother and her aunt out from Williamsport to help.

"I flew them out here on a dime to get this going with me," Iemelanov said. "They've been out here for two months. They had never been out of Pennsylvania and now they're out here and they don't want to go back."

Iemelanov was managing a steakhouse at Gold Dust West in Carson City and was laid off with four days notice, which she saw as her opportunity.

"It's time I did my own thing, and time I do what I want to do," she said.

She said the restaurant has been a huge hit, with a lot of word-of-mouth advertising.

"People come here and say 'I hear you have the best Philly cheesesteak around,'" she said, adding that her customers were mostly Dayton locals, county employees and patrons of the East 50.

• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadappeal.com or call 881-7351.