FOOD
Cheesesteak Di p lomacy
By Rosanne Dunkelberger
He’s from Philly. He’s on the school board. He sells cheesesteaks. He’s a campaign consultant.
PHOTO: The Workmans
J
oe Zimmerman is all of the above and more — A Philly native who sells authentic cheesesteak sandwiches, and a recently appointed member of the Nassau County School Board with a consulting business that counsels candidates and other entities, mostly in his small-county corner of northeast Florida. What he’s not is a cop.
“My mom … was a police officer, so was my grandfather, so was my great grandfather. They were all in Philadelphia,” he explained. “I naturally thought I was gonna follow in the family business.” The extended family decamped from Philly to New Port Richey when the now-39-year-old was in high school and he focused on studying criminal justice at Pasco Hernando Community College. Zimmerman’s first foray into the political scene was not part of a grand plan, more of a fluke. Just one class shy of his Associate’s degree and disinclined to go back to school, he started applying for in-
ternships in 2012 — and his first bite was a call from the office of Congressman Gus Bilirakis. His six-month stint as a district intern came with a wide variety of tasks, but Zimmerman boils it down to, “I was just a coffee boy, basically.” You may be thinking, “Hey, this is a food story, when do we get to the cheesesteaks?” Right now, although politics is still part of his tale. He moved to Fernandina Beach to work with his brother, who owned a brick-and-mortar cheesesteak restaurant called Philly Boyz. It was located downtown right behind The Palace Saloon, which prides itself on being Florida’s oldSummer 2025
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