BTS Stops at Vesta Pizza Before Sold-Out Stanford Shows

V’s onstage pizza shoutout at BTS’ sold-out Stanford Stadium run sent ARMY hunting for Vesta, the Redwood City pizza spot the band quietly visited.

It took a 14-year-old Redwood City pizza joint, a vocalist with a well-documented carb obsession, and one offhand stage moment for Vesta to become an unlikely stop on the BTS tour map.

The K-pop septet rolled in on Monday, May 11, with security, blacked-out SUVs parked discreetly down the street, and a clear preference for the back dining room. They ordered, among other things, three rounds of Vesta’s Sausage and Honey pie.

The shoutout came days later. From the stage on Saturday, V, the group’s resident pizza enthusiast, told the 50,000-seat crowd that Stanford had the best pizza he had eaten and promised the band would be back for more. He never named the place. He didn’t have to.

Vesta co-owner Peter Borrone, who opened the spot with his wife Courtney 14 years ago, said his inbox started filling up with messages once ARMY fans pieced V’s vague clue together. He had been sitting on the visit, hoping the group would come back before their final Tuesday show.

Vesta employee Luis Valdivia, who worked the night BTS came in, said the band lingered, ate well and kept it low key. No social posts. No selfies on the wall.

The pizza stop is one of several Bay Area side quests fans have stitched together from social posts and grainy phone footage. Members were spotted earlier in the week at the Hub Pickleball Club in San Jose, dressed down in baseball caps and hoodies, trading shots between themselves. On Saturday, Jin popped up at California’s Great America with a churro and a pretzel.

The detours are happening between three sold-out Stanford Stadium shows that mark the group’s first Bay Area run since their 2018 Love Yourself stop at the old Oracle Arena. CBS News, tracking the run, documented fans camping nearly 24 hours to buy merch before the first show, with the line wrapping the athletic track twice.

This is the band’s first full-scale tour since members began their mandatory Korean military service in 2022 and 2023. The Arirang World Tour, which kicked off April 9, is their biggest ever, with 79 shows across 34 regions tied to the new album of the same name. Stanford has been measuring the cultural and economic ripple, with hotel and restaurant spending alone expected to push millions into local tax revenue.

From Stanford, the tour rolls to Las Vegas, then Japan, Europe, the UK, Latin America and Australia. The album that anchors it, Arirang, sold 3.98 million copies on its first day; the title track SWIM cleared 40 million views the day it dropped.

For Bay Area fans who didn’t get a seat, the consolation prize lands in October, when RM‘s personal art collection takes over the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. RM x SFMOMA brings 200 works from the rapper’s collection to the museum for the first time.

For Vesta, the prize is more immediate. Borrone is still waiting to see if the group circles back before Tuesday’s closer. ARMY is already lining up.