825: Inside Pizzeria Beddia with Joe Beddia

0:23This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

0:35Joe Padilla opened Pizzeria Padilla in 2013 as a six-seat, cash-only Philadelphia shop with no phone and no logo. Two years later, Bon Appetit called it the best pizza in America, and the line never stopped. Now Padilla runs a 140-seat restaurant with a Michelin bib gourmand and a private hoagie room. And he just opened his first restaurant outside the country, Bar Etna in London. On this episode, we talk about the myth of the original shop, why the original dough recipe hasn't changed much, and how he honed his skills in, of all places, Madison, Wisconsin. I hope you enjoy this episode.

1:15Joe Badia, welcome to This is Taste. It's so cool to meet you. Thanks for having me. You're rad. I love your pizza. And you know your cookbook, too. Thanks. We're not really going to talk about the book, but great book. So much to cover. You're one of America's known pizaiolos. That's weird to think about, but I'll take it. No, you really are. And I think it's legit. I get to have a little bit of pizza around the country, and your work is amazing. You've opened recently in London, and we're going to talk about that. Yeah. And you've spent a lot of time there. What are some restaurants in London that you're interested in right now?

1:51London was just awesome. I mean, just like I stayed in Dalston for a lot of it. I was there for two months, which is like almost too long. And that was like a Turkish heavy neighborhood. And I had a favorite place there, Umat 2000. Umat 2000. Yeah. And it was just like awesome. And like I ate there so much I got sick of it. I went to my first real St. John experience, like a long Sunday lunch. Yeah. um it's just as you know all those places you know you hold like that are historic i feel like when you go to them and they're great you're just like so thankful because it you know it it is you know what what they say um yeah yeah kind of yeah it's like going to like um or zuni cafe or something when it's like perfect you're like oh this is there's a reason um uh where are we go um cafe deco was great yeah uh tollington's which is my partner's pub um plonk plonk you know this place i know it's like a great wine bar with this um australian chef oh it was like amazing makes sense the wine term plonk yeah yeah i get it i get it it's cool like it definitely says a lot well i really wanted this conversation to go in a lot of areas because you have a cool career.

3:16We're going to talk a little bit about before you opened your pizza shop in Philly, you had some other experiences. But just from the jump, tough question, I realized, but I mean, can you define your own pizza style? I have my own thoughts. I mean, I would just say, listen, I was influenced. I could tell you my influences and I feel like I just, I pulled from those things, those places. And, you know, like I would say, you know, Anthony Mangieri and Dom DeMarco from DeFara, Chris Bianco, like the big American influences to me. But the pizza at DeFara was like, I want to make that pizza. I want to eat that again.

4:01And I wanted to do it in my own way. So I would say it's, you know, some sort of East coast American, you know, influenced by New Haven, New York, and then also, you know, sort of born in, out of Philadelphia. Yeah. And you, and really a definitive element of your pizza style is this finishing Gouda. Yeah. I mean, that's super rad. I love Gouda in general, but the idea to finish with something other than Parmesan and Reggiano or even Pecorino in some cases. Yeah. What brought you to that? Because that really is your trademark in many ways. I think that was like the Chris Bianco influence of like him being in Arizona and like, oh, we're going to use our olive oil made close by or Arizona pistachios and stuff.

4:56And that was, again, like back to like, you know, like an Alice Waters thing. It's like, what's good around us? and you know the idea of like oh we're gonna buy this mozzarella cheese from italy that's gonna i don't know how long it takes to get there or whatever but it just didn't sound um you know that that um i wasn't moved by it in any way so like you know to use a local locally made cheese use we have um this amazing amazing tomatoes canned tomatoes from new jersey um that i think are just delicious. So let's embrace this. Yeah, I see a lot of that local flavor happening. But then you do a pizza like the greens.

5:40So with clobberine cream and just, I keep thinking about that pie. I had that in May. It's like several months later, dude. It's really, I mean, we could talk about dough and like we could talk about the way you're, you know, the leavening of the naturally leavened doughs and like all that time. But when you talk about the toppings, This pizza with this really nice amount of charred green and the clobbering cream is so delicious. Thanks. Yeah. I think that was another one kind of influenced by this place that is in Chicago that just reopened called Great Lake. And I saw those guys making pizza and, you know, they were using fresh cream.

6:22And I was like, like, I did that a little bit where I was like, you know, building a pizza with garlic and mozzarella and then greens. And then I would sort of spoon cream over it. But then I was just like, why don't I just emulsify this cream and put anything I want to, I could imagine, into this and make it like spreadable or whatever. So I think that's where it was born from that. And like, you know, I would just always have that pizza, whether it was, you know, a lot of times garlic or Calabrian chilies or any sort of spice that you can think of. And you would just add it into that and make a sauce out of it.

7:00And that was like, you know, like some people I've been in pizzerias where they're making like a bechamel. I mean, this really sort of heavy thing is like, you can just whip this cream and it's already, you know, it's easy and it's perfect. I cannot believe Great Lake is open. Great Lakes. again. That was like an uptown back in the day, breaking news here to me. So cool that you're inspired by that pizzeria. I love that. Yeah. I'd only gone once and I first learned of it through the edible Selby cookbook, which like, that was like my, that was like a Bible to me. I just like to see all these great places and all the unique individuals and like people that could really just take something small as, you know, and make something really special out of it.

7:47I was like, oh, I can – I really wanted to do that from that book. So cool. Yeah. Well, speaking of the Midwest, let's go back a little bit. You interned at Pizza Bruda in Madison, Wisconsin. Yeah. Tell me about that time. What's your connection to Madison? Why did you pick that spot? I went to college there. I love that. I love Madison. So cool. I love that you spent some time there. Yeah. I go there once a year. My brother has lived there for probably 20 years. He's married with two young children now. So I was out there visiting. This is probably, I don't even know when it was, 2008 or 9. And I remember, you know, I was like deep in my pizza geekdom at the time and, you know, traveling to New York or New Haven and trying all the old places.

8:36And I was talking to the owner while I was visiting my brother. and he was like, well, if you ever want to come out here and like, you know, spend some time in the kitchen. And I was like, oh yeah, you know, I would love to do that. So, um, and, and that was, that was a great experience too. I mean, they made, you know, fresh mozzarella every day. Um, it was wood fired pizza, um, different than what, whatever I got into, but it was just, just to be around it. Like I, um, people ask all the time for like, I don't know, just advice and opening something or whatever and it's like you really just have to immerse yourself in what the thing is i don't know it's like yeah there's no other way around it like if you want to be successful or or you care with with with pizza i mean it's true craftsmanship i mean you could say like you you're making shoes and you're thinking the same steps and it just takes this like level of of precision and also just repetition um so i understand that you talk Talk about the pizza geekdom.

9:38Take us back to like when pizza became like something you knew that you wanted to do as a career. I think it was like I brewed beer for a long time professionally. I mean a long time, like whatever, seven, eight years. Yeah. My 20s to late 20s. And I got into pizza as a hobby to where I just – I think it was like the thing that I noticed – this is like kind of my entry into cooking was like, why is this place so good in this place? So terrible? Like, what's the difference? It was like a math equation. And you just start to look at a place and you're like, okay, well, these people are maybe using this ingredient or these people just care more or any number of any number of things.

10:24And I think that was the thing where I was just like, oh, I want to like try and find the really good places. And I think that led me down a path where I was traveling, tasting, and experiencing these places. And then right, something happened where I did a kind of a stage back into the beer community backwards outside of Tokyo at Hitachino, the little brewery with the owl. Oh, Hitachino Nest at Zero Zero. Right now, I don't drink alcohol. okay oh i don't even know about this that's cool i'll have to try it like a ginger yuzu but then going back when i was drinking alcohol truly one of the best craft breweries yeah yeah that's so cool i was inspired by by them i think and what they were making so i i contacted them and i i ended up moving there for four months and and living and working in japan and when i was got the, we worked like crazy, but when I had the chance to go to Tokyo, I would explore their pizzerias.

11:32And that was kind of at the time before Americans knew Japanese pizza. Like maybe somebody did, but no one I knew. And I remember going to this one place. I don't even know the name. It was like a very traditional Neapolitan pizzeria. Was it Savoy? No, no, no. Well, this is the thing. so I was at this place and I was like this pizza is great and the and and the the sort of like pizzaiolo guy was like oh you have to go to this place and he told me it was Savoy okay and I mean that's when it was an eight seat you know marinara margarita only thing and I remember going there like a day later or something and I was like I was like did that laughing crying thing where I was It's like, oh, my God, why is this so good?

12:17And the marinara pizza was just almost so much better than the pizza with mozzarella on it. Yeah, yeah. And I was just like, you know, flabbergasted. What did you taste in the dough? Like in the actual baking side of it, the bread side of that, that first Savoy experience that made you cry a bit? I just think it was just – it was alchemy. it was it it was the um the the sort of puff on the crust that was so sort of like crackery but then it was so soft and and just tasted like beautiful bread on the inside and it was so light and um you know it's like um tomato and and you know whoever the the pizza maker was it was like doing this very fast technique of shaving garlic with like a steak knife or something and is you you know, onto the pizza, like a clove of garlic in the center and then some basil and then salt and everything.

13:13And it was just like tremendous. And it was so good that my brother was over at the time and we went back for dinner the same day and just ate it again. And I was like, I don't understand this. It's a true head. We'll go back for a second meal in the same day when you spot a place. I totally feel that. Well, then Joe, you end up back in Philly with this idea that you wanted to open your own place. Now, take us through the beats that got us to the opening of this restaurant that was doing 40 pies a night. Very, very, very handmade. How did you get to that point. I think the, the other thing, um, just to backtrack a bit was when I was in this small town living in Japan, Mito, um, I would go to like little restaurants and each restaurant like, or a lot of the places were one person like shows.

14:14So it was like some, you know, little, you know soup place or like almost like a diner and it was one person cooking and they would take your order and they would you know do the bill and then they would come out and clear the table or whatever and that was the moment where I was like oh I'm gonna just make pizza this way and because I didn't really have the means to open a restaurant I didn't really have the experience at the time and like that wasn't really that interesting I mean the interesting thing was to make the pizza. But if I could do it my way on that scale, that's what was like, that like sort of was captivating.

14:57And I think taking that, I think it's rare too. I think about it now because like just to do something new in my life or whatever, but you think about that time where you knew that you were going to do something and you had this like sort of eye-opening moment. That's, yeah, that's basically what happened. And then I came back to Philly. I worked in a bunch of different places i saved some money you know and then slowly over time i developed the the the pizza and then i also you know leased a space and like yeah so when you were staging and working before opening the shop was that like your first restaurant experience like like cooking professionally yeah yeah yeah i mean the the the um pizza bruda in in madison and then um i came back and I staged for a couple months at Mark Vetri's Osteria back in the day when it was like amazing.

15:53Um, and then I got a job at a place called Zavino. Um, and I, I worked there for two years and made pizza. Okay, cool. So you were like really doing production pizza for two years. You were getting your, yeah. You know, the interesting thing about the first, the first like real job this place is a vino which is no longer there but um i was the daytime guy so i was like dough all the prep and then i cooked pizza for lunch so it's kind of almost better because dinner time you're just like just cranking out pizza but this the way that i did it i like got to do it i got to like make everything and i think that was always you know i'd learned so much in that.

16:36And I got to make pizza as well. I mean, dough management is everything, right? Oh, yeah. And that's, I think maybe some listening don't quite realize that in a busy pizza shop where the dough is actually considered and has multi-day fermentation cycles, that management is everything. And if you mess it up, you're kind of not having a pizza shop that day. Right, right. And so figuring out how that flow worked, was that challenging to get to that? level of management? I think it's pretty like, I think, you know, if you follow the way that it should go, as long as you're not missing elements of it, you should be fine.

17:16You know, if it's too hot, you put the dough back in the walk-in or something. Yeah. There's always like these pizza places are like, oh, I don't like the dough. We're not opening today. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, how did you mess it up that much? Did you forget salt or did you not put the yeast in like i've never had like a batch where i was like we can't eat this it's not that like it's very true there's a lot of attention to detail you have to watch the temperatures and yeah yeah so the shop opens and it really is 40 a night is that right yeah 40 pies how's that a business i mean it was fine i for five years i mean listen i i was like i had a I didn't have a car, which is kind of wild.

18:00I had a very small house with an inexpensive mortgage payment, which you could do in Philadelphia. And I basically created a job for myself. Yeah. I think I made$36 ,500 a year for five years. Yeah. Which was kind of fine. I mean, the downside is if you're not working, you're not making money. but it was like it was totally fine I mean even at that age like you know when you're in your like mid 30s or whatever like I don't even know if I had health insurance back then I mean I didn't really need it I'm fortunate enough to be like have decent health or whatever but yeah I mean talk about those five years in terms of general happiness because you know now you operate a much larger operation in multiple countries and time zones and there's like more it's going on your eyes just really went wild but like doing it on your own for five years making 36k you know managing expenses I feel like that you were probably very satisfied I think it was great I think for me my lease ran out in five years and I wasn't sure I wanted to sign up for five more and there was a moment where I tried to buy the building so I could kind of you know grow it that way and then you know they try to sell it to me and then when i try to buy it they're like oh we don't want to sell it now so i think that at the end of the day um i wasn't sure what i wanted to do i was approached by a kind of a startup um restaurant group in philadelphia and i was like i don't know if that's like my thing and then at a certain point i was like i I don't really have anything else to do.

19:49Joe Beddia:Yeah. Like I don't have a fallback plan. So I agreed to do this new restaurant. I, you know, was very fortunate to work with great people. I had like full creative control. I could create a menu. I mean, I was into wine, so I could create a wine list. I mean, it was just like, creatively, it was like really, really amazing. Before we get to that, man, this is your Fishtown shop, restaurant that has a hoagie room. We'll get to that. Let's talk about BA, Bon Appetit. They name you the pizza of the year at a time when BA really – that meant a lot. Tell me about what happens to a single chef operator when BA comes a knock in and writes a nice article.

20:37You get really busy. Yeah. I mean the thing is it didn't change anything. I just wanted to be the same thing. thing i wanted to you know continue to try and make the best pizza every time i made a pizza and i i i really enjoyed it it did get so busy at times where you know there's people outside taking your picture and it got really sort of um uncomfortable in a way that way that where i think at the end of the five years i was like okay that was enough yeah of just that i i don't have you know like um the thing that some of these guys that i respect so much to to to dedicate your entire life to a craft i didn't i don't think i had that in me where i i need i felt the need to do it i felt like i did it and i enjoyed it with my whole body and heart and soul and everything and i i think that it i just felt like it was like time to move on yeah after that but yeah that was like a heavy i i mean i remember it like it was yesterday yeah i i was coming up for a podcast at bon appetit i knew that they had written a story i know they don't write like critical pieces but you don't know what they're gonna say and i had lunch i mean i remember it was like it was yesterday i had lunch at the restaurant called untitled yeah by myself yeah came up on the train like I did today.

22:07I had a wonderful lunch there. I remember going up the elevator in the World Trade Building. Yeah, yeah. And he handed me the magazine. And I mean, I couldn't even open it. I was just, I saw this little circle on the cover and I was just so emotional. I was just kind of freaking out. And then he basically brought me in to a studio like we're in now. And he's like, and then we just like turned the mic on. Was that Knowlton? Yeah. Andrew Knowlton. Yeah. And they gave me like a, you know, I had a glass of bourbon or something. Yeah. And I was just sitting there like, oh my God, what is that? You're on the cover of BA.

22:47Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was wild. So it's crazy. Like, and that is powerful. And I really, really respect BA at that era. Yeah. Doing things like that and putting a restaurant on the cover and it being this influential moment for you. I just I love I love that it changed your life oh definitely yeah I mean I I tried to I tried to like sort of keep it real or whatever but um yeah it was uh it was a lot of a lot of pressure but again like we we you know we stuck to the 40 pizzas I mean it got really annoying for our regulars like we had people very very upset and I was like I don't know what to do like yeah you stuck with the 40 pizza we just did the same thing we always did yeah I don't know if that was the tweak the best decision not really i mean we just i mean you know stuff gets more expensive and you raise the price a little bit but it wasn't anything like that yeah i mean you didn't want to be inaccessible um but but you instantly became that way and like i think yeah your regulars are annoyed but like telling the story of what inspired the 40 pizza limit it makes perfect sense i mean that was just a timing thing yeah it was like okay we're gonna make a thousand dollars a day yeah Which is not that much money four days a week.

23:59Yeah. And then like, you know, I mean, the rent wasn't that much. I mean, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it was, it all kind of worked out. There's all these like theories about like how it wasn't sustainable and all this stuff. I'm like, I could be doing that today if I wanted to. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was fine. But as you just said, you wanted, you'd done it already. Yeah. So you opened in Fishtown, this beautiful space. there's a hoagie room but natural wine and wine in general is a very important part it kind of comes together and this is like you obviously came from a professional beverage background too yeah brewing so like that beverage service is super important so i think like the reputation for you was like doing these cool pizzas with this shaved gouda on top lots of specials very you know shaping these great lakes that style but also like the bottle list is is really good i mean for for like prices too it's like yeah no i i heard that yeah i absolutely like that a great value spot yeah like definitely with like a wine geek kind of place i had to convince my partners like just to take a different approach to like let's charge a little bit less and like let the guests have a better experience in hopes that they maybe have a little bit more yeah wine or something and and and i don't think at the time people were really doing that we had the, you know, Pennsylvania is a really tough state to do business in.

25:23Um, it's all state controlled. So it's, I mean, it's 30 % more expensive for us to buy wine than it is in Manhattan, which doesn't make any sense. We don't have the money. We don't have the market. Um, and so we, we, you really have to like, if you want to do high quality, you have to buy the stuff, pay for it and then sell it at a discount, which is kind of a wild thing to do. But otherwise, like if it's if we do a three time markup for our price, we don't sell it.

25:52Joe Beddia:It's it's. Yeah. And then what's what's the point? Doing one point five markups and two markups is I love that strategy. And obviously as a consumer, we love that strategy. But it really you see it in action. People will buy that second glass or buy that second bottle. But also just having a really strong point of view with the wines. Tell me about the hoagie room. What's that all about? So I work with this guy, John, at the original pizzeria. He was sort of the front guy. He would help prep during the day. He would do the ordering in the front in the evening. And we worked amazingly together for five years and wanted to continue to work together.

26:34But he was like, I don't really want to make pizza and I don't really want to be a restaurant manager. and like there was just sort of this like like what well i don't know what what what else is john what do you want to do yeah i want to like actually do you want to sweep the floors and the internet i mean like yeah yeah it was like and so there was we were you know designing the space and it was a rather large space but there was a little bit of room in the back that was going to be an employee bathroom there was an audio visual closet component and i was like trying to i was like okay I have this idea.

27:10John is from South Jersey. He's a really, he's extremely bright guy. He grew up with, you know, like hoagie culture or whatever. And I was just like, whatever. Well, I mean, just like, he was so into it and like, you know, like sort of, and, and, yeah. And I was just like, I had this other idea. Maybe we can like, the, the, the first pizzeria was so personal. Yeah. And, you know, know we're opening this place it's 140 seats um and it's kind of the complete opposite so what if we were able to do this very intimate personal thing again six seats we're baking a little bit of bread these these rolls every day specifically for this room you have to be in the room to enjoy this experience and like so i was just like this thing i was like i don't know we i just kind of came up with it but really really fun so you book the hoagie room for the hoagie experience yeah and what do you get um we start with a welcome cocktail we do um a few uh small plates um really nice like shaved ham um a couple salads and then we do three different hoagies on this on these house baked rolls um and then we do pizza soft serve yeah that's so we have our own magnum wine list i don't know it's yeah so you book it out as like a basic price fix and it's yeah tough reservation well i i think um on weekends it's definitely tough it's like 30 days out there's like people book it at midnight or one of those things but during the week it's it's uh it's more accessible i think we do two scenes a day really cool so when you talk about three hoagies what are the three variety like versions so we started with three and now we have we changed one of them but um we do this really really wonderful um roasted vegetable which i feel like people don't really think that sounds that great yeah it's like um roasted you know broccoli rob um red peppers um marinated portobello mushrooms and eggplant and then we make this um sesame aioli and a little bit of provolone and fresh basil and it's just like really i people are blown away by it sounds amazing and people that are like you know not not thinking they're gonna enjoy it um and then the second one we used to do an italian tuna and um uh like we get these smoked sardines from maine um and then um we switched that recently to this uh turkey hoagie with sun-dried peppers and yeah I don't know, whatever.

29:52And then we do a traditional Italian... Italian beef, yeah. Italian hoagie. Yeah, Italian style. I mean, it's so great that you can be pescatarian in it and have a great time. Oh, yeah. He works it out. Then you drop some pies, and then you have your great soft serve, which is the local brand, right? Yeah, yeah. 1-900. 1-900 ice cream, yeah. Yeah, it's delicious. Really good stuff. And so you can get the ice cream at the pizza shop, but the hoagies are only for the room. Exactly, yeah, yeah. So when you're building this larger space, 140 seats with your partners, like how involved are you knowing that you spent five years working this super intimate like personal project?

30:35Like how does that – that must have been difficult. It was. I have a lot of friends that work in art and design and I really leaned on them. But I was very, very involved with all of it. um and i it's hard to say when i feel like when you do something that's that's challenging and you know difficult whatever it's it's never really easy but it's rewarding once you're done yeah it's like such a challenge but um uh yeah i leaned on a lot of friends we had a good architect and And like, yeah, we really, yeah, took it to where, I don't know. So how does London happen? It sounds like it's going well.

31:22It's great. Yeah. It opened in mid-May. I had a friend, a Philly designer friend who married a woman from Anthropologie, which is in the Navy Yard in South Philly. Yeah. They got married, moved to London five years ago. She's from there. and he had been wanting to do a project. He partnered with Ed McElroy, who has a couple great restaurants and they found a space and they were like, oh, it'd be great to do pizza. And I think right now in London, there is a kind of an American pizza sort of renaissance or whatever you want to call it. And so they were like, do you want to do it? And I'm like, oh my God.

32:08My lifelong dream is to do something international. Yeah, sure. And how do you break into that unless you're mega famous or whatever? Or it's just a licensing deal and it doesn't feel – But even that, they're not giving those to – like Peter Luger's. They have a licensing deal in Tokyo. But I'm not – no one knows me in Tokyo really. I mean, you know what I mean? So it's like you have to be like, I don't know, Otto Lange or somebody. So you got the opportunity and you open. What's it like working with the London products? Like are you milling there and are you using local cheese? We use – well, a couple things.

32:50I mean the produce is amazing. They have like produce. I mean we visited Natura, which is where we get a lot of stuff from a purveyor. And, you know, it's like they have like Italian, Spanish, like all this produce from – and it's like Europe is like at your – right at your beck and call. And so that was like a whole thing. The cheeses and stuff from Italy, I don't know. It just seems so much better. Yeah. Where we do use Neil's Yard for a finishing cheese, which is kind of similar to the sort of Gouda that we started using. Cool. It's usually Neil's Yard cheese. Yeah. It's called Cooley-a. Yeah, yeah.

33:37Cooley? Cooley-a. Yeah. It's like an Irish sort of cave-age cheese. But that's kind of the idea is to try and use as much stuff locally that makes sense. And not necessarily in a dogmatic way, but like, yeah. And the people were wonderful. I mean, I knew one person walking into this experience. I spent two months there. And, yeah, I just, like, I just, like, have so much respect for, like, the people working. And, like, I don't know. I was kind of blown away by how well it was received, how well the people, you know, like, put themselves into it. And just even the neighborhood and the neighbors were so supportive.

34:26Like, I don't know. What's it called? The pizza shop? Bar Aetna. Bar, okay. It's sort of like a 20-seat bar in the front and 40-seat dining room in the back. That's really cool. And so how do you keep tabs on it and make sure the stuff is – I mean, that's not easy. So Ed that has the two other restaurants, he's technically like running it. I'm going to go back in October for a couple weeks. I mean, I plan to be there like twice a year. Yeah. But we have like a great culinary team there. I mean, it's like small. Yeah. But people are excellent. I want to end this and just talk about Philly yeah we've done Taste Travels Philly I go there a couple times a year I love it I mentioned so many places on this last episode including your spot but I want to hear from you just like your peers in Philadelphia some of the restaurants that you frequent that you love because I feel like it's for many on the east coast who just don't have a connection to Philly and don't go there they're really missing out I just love these restaurants in Philly.

35:30It's something special about it. I don't know what it is. I think there's just like a lot of very smart, very tight concepts happening. And also just community that really supports each other, diners in particular. Yeah. I definitely agree with that. I mean, very, very supportive community. I mean, I don't know if anyone needs anything, you can kind of reach out and people help. But, yeah, it's just a strong sort of maybe a second city mentality, you know, great culture there. There's just so many. I don't know. It's really wonderful. And it's wonderful this summer specifically because, you know, we had like we were kind of on the world stage with the World Cup.