While Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast is usually recorded in their home cities of Philadelphia and Kansas City, the most recent episode took a trip across the pond. The brothers were in London to support Travis’ girlfriend Taylor Swift during her Eras Tour — but they still managed to make the location feel like home.
With Jason’s ties to the Philadelphia Eagles (he announced his retirement after 13 seasons in March), it seems the only logical place in the English capital to record was Passyunk Avenue. The Philly-inspired dive bar located in the heart of central London welcomed the brothers on June 22 — the day after Jason and his wife Kylie Kelce attended their first Eras Tour show at Wembley Stadium.
Travis, 34, ordered a beer and a cheesesteak “as soon as he arrived,” manager Jessi Riley tells PEOPLE.
“We were having a ‘Swiftie Party’ later that day and it was extra funny because I was setting up the cardboard cut out of Taylor Swift as Travis walked in,” says Riley. “I kind of said, ‘Sorry about the girlfriend, we’re having a Taylor Swift afterparty tonight,’ and he said, ‘As am I.’ He was a bit early, so I wasn’t expecting him for another 45 minutes, so there I was standing with his girlfriend!”
Riley’s first interaction with Jason, 36, was not as eventful but just as sweet. “[He] felt like a face I already knew,” says Riley. “He walked in and gave me a big bear hug around the shoulders and it just felt normal.”
Passyunk Avenue
Riley ended up appearing in the pair’s podcast episode and served up traditional British cuisine including a full English breakfast and an afternoon tea.
Jason and Travis were also joined at the bar by Kylie, 32, who decided to leave her very own souvenir at the venue.
“Our bar has a bit of a tradition,” JP Geti, Philly native and founder of Passyunk Avenue, tells PEOPLE. “Everything you see on the walls has been donated by people over time, so it’s like a collection of other people’s junk that proudly hangs in our bar.”
“One thing that has happened over time is people will take American dollar bills and write messages in Sharpies and stick them all over the venue,” adds Geti, who created Passyunk in 2018 after noticing a lack of dive bars in London. “As Jason and Kylie were getting ready to leave, she was like, ‘Jason give me a bill, I want to write a message and leave it behind,’ and Jason said, ‘All I’ve got is a 100,’ so Jason takes out a 100 and she says, ‘Okay fine I’m writing on a 100 then, that’s what we’re doing.’ The message was, ‘F— Dallas, Go Birds and Go Cabrini,’ where she went to college.”
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Jessi Riley
“She insisted on standing on a chair and pinning it at the highest part of the venue herself and I just kept thinking, ‘Please don’t fall,” says Riley. “She said, ‘If you’re worried about liability just look away!’”
“She’s so cool, very down to earth,” adds Riley.
Passyunk Avenue also features a replica of the mummers costume Jason wore during a parade after the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018. The item was proudly displayed beside Jason during the podcast recording, along with the huge collection of friendship bracelets he had gathered the night before.
Passyunk Avenue
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“They were sat in front of him like a trophy,” laughs Riley.
“We really had to keep it under wraps that they were going to be here, but a few people worked it out,” she continues. “It was quite surreal. They’re just really funny together. The second they start talking they’re amusing each other, and Travis said it had been like that since they were kids.”
Passyunk Avenue
Adds Geti: “They’re just really grounded dudes.”
