A Taste of The Ship's History

The Drunken Ship is the original and most famous American bar in Italy. The Ship just celebrated its 10th anniversary in April 2004.

The Drunken Ship was started for one reason only and that was to bring to Italy the American way of life… party party party. Ten years ago you could not find a pub or bar in Italy where the staff spoke English and had more fun then it’s customers. It was even more difficult to find shots, pitchers of beer, ice, and cocktails that had more than one ingredient...and dancing? Forget about it!!!!

In 1994 I, Reagan Smith, owner, realized getting A “REAL JOB” after college was way too scary to even think about it so my roommate and I headed off to Europe in search of anything but a career. After trying to find bars that were fun and where you didn’t get ripped off because you were a foreigner, feeling awkward dancing on top of bars and having everyone stare, I said “that’s it let’s open a bar - how hard can it be?”

6 months later The Drunken Ship was born, and believe me it was like giving birth to a Mac truck. Easy is not the word I would use to describe anything in Italy other than eating great pasta. The bar eventually opened; I hired a couple of friends and said let’s make our own party and do body shots and hey if the Italians like it great if not screw ‘em. We had one goal in mind and that was to have a party 7 nights a week 365 days a year and we have totally succeeded for 10 years.

The secret to our success? That’s easy: THE STAFF. I have the best staff any bar owner could ever ask for. People say it’s so hard keeping staff at bars and restaurants - well the Ship doesn’t have that problem (we can’t get rid of them and when we think we have they always come back!)

Trials and tribulations of bar bureaucracy in Italy.
Opening a bar in Italy was difficult between the corruption and that little language barrier thing, it made for some interesting stories but my all time favorite story kind of sums up the beginning days as an American FEMALE entrepreneur in Italy:

In Italy you have to get about 500 permits for everything and anything (they even decide on the sign outside indicating your business!) They charge up the you-know-what for all of these permits and you cannot open until you have all of them. Which, by the way is close to impossible, because the laws change on a daily basis and the person that was in charge of that permit just disappears and you have to start all over again.

At the time they had no computers so if your paper work got conveniently ‘lost’ you had to start all over…anyway finally I figured out why my paper work kept getting lost...it was because I wouldn’t pay anyone off. So the word was out “Watch out for that small American girl that barely speaks Italian, she won’t take no for an answer and she expects us to actually work and she won’t give out any hand-outs!!!! So I was blacklisted until one day I used my American charm (not really). I kinda of told a white lie (well I didn’t ever actually say anything, I just never corrected them). You see my name is Reagan and in Italy at the time they all knew who President Reagan was, so one day one of the people at the permit place asked me if Ronald Reagan was my grandfather and…let’s just say I kinda gave her a look and she went “ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.” So now I was the small bionda Americana whose grandfather might be Ronald Reagan so don’t screw with her and *poof* I started to get some very well deserved permits.

So that’s how I started to understand the Italian mentality. Its not hard work that will get you ahead, its just who you know - or in this case who you might be related to. Duh!! Reagan is my first name not my last name but do me favour don’t tell anyone over in Italy ;-)

Reagan