A group of chefs in South Philly's Italian Market set out to break the record for world's longest cheesesteak on Monday. The resulting hoagie spanned three blocks and caused some traffic issues.

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

If you were trying to drive through South Philadelphia yesterday, you may have experienced some traffic issues. It wasn't an accident or a broken stoplight, but instead a cheesesteak.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

A hoagie that measured more than 500 feet spanned three city blocks yesterday afternoon. It was made in honor of Rene Kobeitri. He owns the Rim Cafe and is often called Don Rene. For his birthday, he enlisted chefs at neighboring restaurants to help him break the record for world's longest cheesesteak, previously set at 480 feet by Steve's Prince of Steaks.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RENE KOBEITRI: You know what? Very simple and very easy. Today is the day. I'm making the biggest steak in the beautiful city in the whole world - Philadelphia. I'm trying to put everybody together. So you have to come here. We're making over 600-foot cheesesteak, baby.

CHANG: (Laughter) Now, this hoagie was not just the traditional Philly recipe of beef and cheese whiz. No, each participating restaurant gave its own spin on it, from Mexican barbacoa to Japanese yakitori.

SHAPIRO: Now, that may offer a unique opportunity to show off the different cultures of Philadelphia, but some say to be the world's longest cheesesteak, it needs to be strictly cheese and steak.

CHANG: (Laughter) And he also pointed out that the hoagie was not one continuous roll of bread, but rather hundreds of rolls placed end to end. Not even the ends were cut, like you might expect on a Subway 6-foot party sub.

SHAPIRO: One Twitter user pointed out that a mile-long pizza in Italy was made using specially designed rolling ovens and asked, could this have been achieved in some way with the hoagie bread? For his part, Don Rene was unfazed.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

KOBEITRI: Forget Guinness in minutes (ph). Just go and make it happen. I love you.

CHANG: Whether or not the hoagie officially beats any records, the point was to bring about some brotherly love after a difficult year. And Don Rene brought together the city's cooks, including Geno Vento of Geno's Steaks, as he told NBC10 in Philadelphia.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GENO VENTO: One of the friends at the table said, well, why don't you just make a big cheesesteak? Never a size; just said big. And then his motor started going, and then all of a sudden, before you know it, we found out we're making a 500-foot cheesesteak.

CHANG: Five-hundred-ten feet, to be exact. And if the hoagie doesn't quite break a cheesesteak world record, it at least rose to meat (ph) the challenge and steak (ph) a claim at the title.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.