Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s Ohio date: what the NFL star loves about Cleveland Heights

Travis Kelce took Taylor Swift to his hometown of Cleveland Heights, Ohio for a little date, hitting up a local spot for lunch.

The couple ate at Jojo’s Bar, located in Chagrin Falls just outside of Cleveland Heights on July 1.

Michael Dei Maggi, the corporate chef and culinary director for NCR Ventures, which owns JoJo’s, told cleveland.com, “We were lucky enough to have a special visitor today at JoJo’s. It’s a huge deal for us. We try to approach every single guest visit as if they’re super VIP.”

The outlet noted that the A-list couple had a different restaurant, 17 River Grille, in mind for their meeting, but JoJo’s was able to accommodate their privacy needs better.

“We have the ability to create some really cool, sequestered spaces and high-security private spaces for those very rare occasions that you have rock and roll and football royalty in the restaurant,” Dei Maggi said.

“I’m pretty comfortable with it and at the end of the day,” he said of dealing with such famous guests, adding, “it’s really special to be able to create a place where they can kind of get lost in the magic of Chagrin Falls a little bit too. That should be accessible to everybody, even those that require a little additional privacy.”

Kelce is a proud Ohio native, often speaking fondly of his time growing up there.

“Coming from Cleveland Heights, it’s a beautiful city. It’s a melting pot of all different ethnicities and social classes. And it’s really shaped my understanding of accepting people and not only that but enjoying everyone else’s cultures growing up,” he told cleveland.com last year.

He continued, “I have so many friends of different races and their families are from different social classes and stuff and it’s just given me a good understanding of who I am and how to accept everybody for who they are. And I can’t thank Cleveland Heights enough for that, and outside of that it’s given me the desire and the love for life because of how happy I was as a kid. It’s just that the school system and the community, and the families in that community — that means everything.”

In an interview with The Players’ Tribune in 2020, Kelce said, “I just have so much love for the people in that city. It’s given me so many ways to appreciate life, and one of them is definitely the sports world.”

Ahead of the Super Bowl this year, Kelce said in a Jeff Skversky interview, “If you guys know me, you know how much love I have for the city of Cleveland Heights. All the family and friends that I have back there. In my mind, it’s the most beautiful place you can have an upbringing. It’s such a melting pot of social class and ethnicity, you understand so many different walks of life, I love it, I love it for that.”

“And on top of that, I had such an amazing childhood because of my parents and my friends’ parents and the guidance that I got through Cleveland Heights. Yeah I still do everything for that city. And hopefully I go out there and represent the Heights the right way.”

Note to self, it might be time to visit Cleveland Heights.