Águas de São Pedro
Recognizing the importance of the thermal springs in the region, the São Paulo State Government on 19 June 1940 founded the (Hydromineral and Climatic Spa of Águas de São Pedro). Despite this, the city celebrates its birthday on 25 July, the date in 1940 of the founding of the first major building in the city, the "Grande Hotel" (now "Grande Hotel São Pedro"). The municipality of Águas de São Pedro was incorporated by State Law No.233, of 24 December 1948.
Ribeirão Preto
An important fact for the city life happened in 1911 with the opening of its first factory, the Antarctica Brewery Company, nowadays part of the AmBev group. It was Antarctica which built the Pedro II Theatre. The Antarctica factory led to the opening of several beer houses in the city and one of them named Pinguim ("penguin" in Portuguese), became particularly famous and made Ribeirão Preto nationally renowned for the quality of its draft beer ("chope" or "chopp" in Brazilian Portuguese). Many people say that Pinguim has the best draft beer in Brazil and it became so important that it is now a symbol of the city; people say that coming to Ribeirão Preto and not visiting Pinguim is like going to Rome and not seeing the Pope. There are four Pinguim beer houses in Ribeirão Preto: two of them, called Pinguim 1 and 2 respectively, are at the November XV square (the central square of Ribeirão Preto) right beside the Pedro II Theatre). The other two are at the shopping centers Santa Úrsula and Ribeirão Shopping respectively. The Penguin beer house was named after the Antarctica company's logo (see at ).Many small "alambiques" exist in the region, each producing its own singular "Pinga," better known as Cachaça. These "Pingas" are often aged and are available in many flavours, while still maintaining their flair.