Bars

What better way to follow up a post on churches than with a post on bars. Coffee is something of a national religion in Italy. Last summer, as part of Caffeine, Amy attended a workshop on coffee and making the perfect cappuccino. You can go to school to learn to make it. While you can argue that there is such a thing as the perfect cup, 10 Italians will tell you 10 different detailed versions of what it takes to make it perfect. Those of you who have visited us have discovered that, while Amy drinks a lot of coffee, we rarely make coffee. That is because buying a cup is so inexpensive. In Viterbo, the standard price for a cappuccino is a euro.

Many Americans enjoy Starbucks. The creator of Starbucks took his inspiration from the cafes/bars of Italy. In a touch of irony, Starbucks has yet to open a store anywhere in the country which inspired it. The café is a neighborhood gathering spot. Every person has their favorite and is a regular somewhere. In addition to coffee, you can read a paper, buy a snack, get a panini or even get a drink. Our neighborhood has a high density of bars/cafes. There are no fewer than 8 bars within a few minute walk of our apartment. As you enter the Porta Romana walking toward our apartment you first encounter the Red Rose Café. I can’t tell you much about it since I can’t remember ever having been inside.

 

In the same small piazza is the Café San Sisto. It is basically at the end of Via Vetulonia, where we lived last year, and Amy would stop whenever her first business of the day took her outside the walls. She stopped there this morning on our walk to the supermarket.

Further down Via Garibaldi you come to Caffe Bagaglino. It is right around the corner from our current apartment and is one of the few cafes which is open on Sundays, making it a regular stop for Amy.

Closer to home, in fact directly under our apartment, is the Break Bar. We don’t frequent it as much as we used to since, while Amy preferred their iced cappuccino during the summer, she’s not so keen on their regular one at this time of year. Whenever our internet connection goes down, we log on to the free wireless signal from the Break Bar. It is that close.

As you continue down Via Garibaldi, now heading away from our apartment, you come to the Fontana Grande and Bar Movie. This used to be Dick’s a.k.a. Ciocolini and was Amy’s go-to-bar until they closed over the summer. By the time they reopened under new management, the honeymoon was over and she had moved on. They will eventually win back customers, but they lost a huge slice of business since it was also previously the favorite of many SYA students and faculty.

Once again, there is a second bar in the same piazza. Bar 103 occupies a corner spot on the other side of the fountain. This bar also closed and reopened recently. It currently seems to attract a large number of eastern Europeans and does more of its business late in the day when alcohol is more likely the beverage of choice. It was formerly known as the “Bad Bar”, because it pretty much sucked, but it is better now and a few of our students call it home since it is relatively close to the school.

Directly across the street from the school is the Caffe Cavour. It used to be “The Place” to go to have coffee for SYA, but a few years ago it changed management and has become known as the “Sad Bar”. Still, it is so convenient that a few of our students flit across the street during break to grab a cup.

Around the corner, no longer on Via Cavour but within spitting distance, is Happiness Café. Happiness opened this summer and became an instant hit. They have a huge sitting area, fast service and friendly servers. By the way, as far as I can tell, Italians have no idea what a barista is so don’t bother to go there!

This is Amy’s current favorite. She went there today when we were fruit shopping for her second cup of the day. Did I say Amy drinks a lot of coffee?

A couple of obvious themes arise. There are lots of cafes and they change management often. It is a cutthroat business, but if you can build your clientele of regulars who call it home, you can definitely make a go of it.