A restaurant in a small Polish town is dealing with new-found fame after Joe Biden was pictured trying one of its pizzas during a meeting with American soldiers stationed nearby.
The owners say that people have been travelling from far and wide to try the same spicy pizza, which they will now name after the US president. The dish left the Biden dabbing his eyes and asking for water, and he later blamed it for losing his voice during a meeting.
The impromptu pizza tasting only happened because the flight carrying Polish president Andrzej Duda to meet Biden at Rzeszów airport, where the US president had earlier landed, was delayed by technical problems, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.
In the meantime, Biden met paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division stationed nearby, and decided to sit down with them for a slice of pizza.
The one handed to him turned out to be pepperoni with jalapeño peppers, one of the spicier offerings on the menu of Pizzeria Gusto in nearby Głogów Małopolski, a small town with only around 5,000 inhabitants.
The US president apparently struggled with the spiciness of the pizza, asking for some water and dabbing his eyes. Later, during a meeting with NGOs to discuss the Ukrainian refugee crisis, he joked that the “pizza pie with hot peppers” was to blame when he started coughing and taking a sip of water.
Now, receiving a humanitarian assistance briefing, Biden coughs, takes a sip of water and explains to Polish President Duda: "I was visiting our troops and I had pizza pie with hot peppers on it." https://t.co/XCZUilfLnq
— Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) March 25, 2022
By the next day, people were coming from far and wide to visit Pizzeria Gusto and try its famous spicy pizza, its owners told Gazeta Wyborcza. There were no free tables on Sunday, but the restaurant urged potential customers to come back in the week.
“When I got home, I saw them giving the president our pizza. I nearly fell off my chair,” co-owner Damian Drupka told TVN24. “Impossible! I said. The phones rang off the hook, it’s crazy. I’d never have expected that the president of the United States would eat our pizza.”
“The [US] soldiers order pizzas from us every day,” one of Gusto’s employees told Gazeta Wyborcza. “We take them three or four or even 10 at a time.”
On this occasion, 88 pizzas had been ordered the previous night, meaning staff needed to come in specially in the morning to prepare the order. “We thought it was a meal for the president’s guards,” Drupka said. “The one that Joe Biden tried is very spicy, but the Americans very often order it and like it very much.”
Pizza number 22 on the menu will be officially renamed after Joe Biden as soon as the media frenzy dies down, Drupka confirmed. “We will certainly honour this pizza and display it very well in our menu,” he said.
After arriving in Rzeszów and meeting with troops and NGOs, Biden then travalled to Warsaw for talks with Duda as well as Ukraine’s prime minister and defence minister.
On Saturday evening he delivered a speech in the courtyard of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, expressing the United States’ support for Ukraine and condemnation of Vladimir Putin. He also praised Poles for “opening their hearts and their homes” to Ukrainian refugees.
Main image credit: Independent/YouTube (screenshot)
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
