Mankato fans cheer local pizzeria’s slice of fame as backdrop to Durry’s viral music video

MANKATO – The day the music video dropped, Onyx Nicander rushed to the back of the pizzeria where he works. The 22-year-old pulled out his phone and pressed play.

On his screen, downtown favorite Pagliai’s Pizza was transformed into “Papa Durry’s,” the setting for a music video by one of Nicander’s favorite indie rock bands, the brother-and-sister duo Durry.

“It’s just kind of a surreal feeling,” Nicander recalled, “to see the place [where] I work in a video for a band that I like so much.”

That video, for the band’s pop-punk anthem “idk i just work here,” has been viewed more 700,000 times, thrusting the beloved local pizzeria into the internet spotlight.

The brother and sister behind Burnsville-based Durry say they’re surprised at how many comments on the video are related to Mankato pizza.

“I didn’t realize how iconic Pagliai’s was in Mankato, and I just love the support for it,” guitarist Taryn Durry said.

Durry formed after Taryn Durry and her older brother Austin were stuck living together at their parents’ home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to TikTok, their work went viral and they have been touring America. They play First Avenue in September.

“We kind of knew right away we’re working at a food-service job,” said Austin Durry. “The original plan was to find like an old-school diner.”

But the song’s theme of employee burnout and millennial malaise proved a tough sell when asking owners to film at their restaurants. After getting turned down several times, the band’s luck turned when a friend of a friend pointed them toward Pagliai’s Pizza.

The owners, Austin Durry said, were “punk rock” and got the joke.

Jake Downs, whose family has run Pagliai’s Pizza for 25 years, said he agreed to the shoot because he enjoys booking and supporting bands, and because the pizzeria was closed on the Monday of the shoot.

Durry arrived at Pagliai’s at 8 a.m. March 10 for an all-day shoot. The location was almost perfect, except for the bathroom, which Downs joked was “too clean” for the video’s aesthetic, and was replaced by shots from another lavatory that had more room to film.

“It was really awkward,” Austin Durry said, “but that’s what we do.”

Nicander, who still has a “Papa Durry” pizza box from filming, said regulars still come into Pagliai’s and talk about the video, which was released in May.

Sheila Rahn, a customer since her college days in the early 1990s, describes herself as more of a Bob Dylan fan, but she loved the video. “We looked up the rest of their music,” she said. “We sent it to all our friends.”

And Steve Lawrence, who’s also been going to Pagliai’s since the ’90s, said he saw the video and then downloaded all the band’s tracks.

“Anytime that somebody talks about a local institution like that on social media, you’ll get a lot of people to support it — that’s the way Mankato’s built," said Lawrence, a 52-year-old mortgage broker.

But it leaves the door open for a sequel.