BTS ate this Redwood City pizza three times while in town for Stanford shows
May 21-Audrey Cruz, 17, was taking orders during the dinner rush at her parents' restaurant Kumako Ramen when, all of a sudden, she locked eyes with her K-pop idol.
"I see his face, and I have a moment of realization," she said. "I look at him closely and realize, 'Oh my gosh, are you RM? ' And he just looks at me and nods."
RM, the leader of BTS, visited the small, casual ramen restaurant in San Jose's Japantown for dinner with some friends on May 14, shortly before BTS played a trio of sold-out concerts at Stanford Stadium. Cruz said that no one at the restaurant had any idea that RM would be visiting, but that he picked the right place - she and her mother have both been ARMY, the name for BTS' fans, since she was in the fifth grade.
"He's been my bias since I started liking BTS," she said, a term used in K-pop fandom to refer to your favorite member in a group. "... I was very flustered, of course, because he's obviously very handsome."
Nerves aside, Cruz did her best to not treat the K-pop star differently from any other customer, only asking how the food was and if he needed any refills. Despite the fact that he was sitting in the front of the restaurant, no customers seemed to recognize him. He ordered shio ramen and gyoza, and looked like he enjoyed his meal - when Cruz messed up one of his friends' orders and brought a katsu curry ramen instead of a katsu curry rice, the group happily ate the extra dish too. "He was very sweet," Cruz said.
She wrote RM a note of thanks at the end of the meal, telling him she was looking forward to seeing him again that weekend: She attended all three Stanford shows.
While in the Bay Area for their shows on May 16, 17, and 19, BTS also ate at Redwood City pizza restaurant Vesta three times. The first time the group came to the 14-year-old restaurant was on May 11. They sat in a private room with a group of 10 and tried "so much food," co-owner Courtney Borrone said, from pizzas to small plates, salads and lots of dessert. "I got a text from my manager, who was on shift that night, that said 'BTS just left.' And we were like, 'oh my gosh, this is insane.'"
She said the group was very kind and respectful, and that it seemed like they were having fun.
"Here in Redwood City, we're not used to this," she said. "We're not a hub for superstar celebrities, so this is a first for us."
But the restaurant's team refrained from sharing the news on social media just yet - they were hopeful that BTS might return for another meal. And they did.
On stage on Saturday night, BTS member V talked about how he thought Stanford had the best pizza. While he didn't name-drop Vesta, it seems fair to say that's what he was talking about: V and j-hope returned to Redwood City for another meal on Monday, and in a Tuesday night livestream after their final Stanford show, the group dined on Vesta's takeout pizza.
"I am so honored that they picked us," Borrone said. "We are a small, family-owned business so to have a moment like this where somebody on the international scale found us and sought us out and returned and continued to dine with us, I'm super humbled and super grateful."
She said the group's most-ordered dishes were the sausage and honey pizza, the pepperoni pizza, and the cheesecake and bread pudding. Borrone and her family celebrated the unexpected endorsement from perhaps the biggest band in the world by buying last-minute tickets to their Tuesday show.
"For all of us, it was a very happy, uplifting experience," she said. "... It's a memory that will last forever for sure."
While in town, members of BTS also visited the Great America amusement park, Stanford's "Crying Tree" and a pickleball club in Campbell, while Suga ran Bay to Breakers.
Editor's note: This story was updated at 4:25 p.m., May 21, to correct the spelling of Audrey Cruz's name.
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This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 7:13 PM.