STRAIGHTtalk With Livio Stabile
Conversations With People You Should Know...
Livio Stablie loves the art of mixology and the opportunity bartending gives him to meet lots of different people. (photo by Ron Caspi)
Marquette, MI – June, 2014 – This month on STRAIGHTtalk Brian Cabell pulls up a bar stool in the Pub at the Landmark Inn to speak with one of the most popular bartenders in town Livio Stabile, an immigrant from Italy, who’s found romance, a home, and the American dream here in Marquette…
BC: How did you happen to leave Italy and come to the United States?
Livio Stabile at the Landmark Inn in Marquette, MI. (photo by Ron Caspi)
LS: I met Sara (his future wife). That was what took me over here. I never thought about moving to the United States before I met her. It never even crossed my mind.
BC: How did you two meet?
LS: I met her in Siena which is a town in Tuscany. I was working in Bologna and on Friday I jumped on a train to visit a friend in Siena. At that time I didn’t have much money and I decided to take the train without a ticket so I spent most of that train ride in the bathroom. (laughs) And on Saturday, I wake up with a hangover and we’re sitting down for breakfast in a square and I see this girl coming out of a bus and we’re about 50 yards away from her…and I see her walking away and she’s like, floating. You know, moving so beautifully, but I didn’t do anything. Later, we’re walking back, and I see her sitting down having a slice of pizza, and I look at her and she’s absolutely gorgeous. But she doesn’t even look at me. Nothing! So we keep walking and I get an ice cream and I’m still thinking about her, so then I go back to where she was, and she was just getting up. So I go up behind her and I say ‘Hi’ to her, and she turns around and looks at me in surprise. I just spoke a little bit of English at that point and I offered her some of my own ice cream. And she took a bite and I was, like, ‘Wow!’ So we introduced ourselves and I think she liked me right away. And a half hour later…we were kissing right there in the middle of Siena.
BC: So you met a beautiful woman, you kissed her, and then you decided to get married?
LS: No, we met and we were together from that first moment but we were living in the moment for the entire time. We were just trying to be together, no matter what it took. We met in June, 1998 but we didn’t get married until December 2001. We got married here in Marquette at the Pavilion.
Livio Stabile follwed his future wife Sara from his home in Italy to Marquette. (photo by Ron Caspi)
BC: You decided to live here with your new wife. Was that tough, leaving your country?
LS: Very tough. I arrived here in Marquette in October and the first few months were very hard. The biggest thing was the language barrier. My English wasn’t very good. I wanted to understand, I wanted to learn and I tried to follow conversations but after a while I would get a headache. That was very difficult for me because I’m a very social person. And the weather was tough too. It was cold and the trees were bare. I felt like I was in a ghost town. I couldn’t see people around. In Italy everybody walks the streets. Here nobody walks the streets.
BC: Did your family understand why you left?
LS: I think they did. They saw that I really wanted to be with Sara, and I was always a free spirit ever since I was a young kid. So they accepted it because they knew the person I was going to marry and they loved her too.
BC: So you came to America, got married and have lived here ever since. What’s the main difference you see between Americans and Italians?
LS: The American culture lives in the present more which is something I like. Americans are more relaxed in their approach to life. They want to have a good time. Italians? They’re a little bit the opposite. They want to make sure everything is okay before they have fun. Italian culture is more conservative. It’s probably also a money thing. Italy’s economy hasn’t been flourishing for decades, so Italians are more careful. Americans have more money and they expect to get more coming in, so they’re not worried about what’s going to happen tomorrow. I think Americans are also more free with their minds as far as religion goes. I think everybody here believes more in themselves.
BC: What about Italian women and American women? Do you see a big difference between them?
LS: Oh yeah. I think it’s the approach that American women have toward everything. They consider themselves equal to men. So if they like a man, they’ll let him know. In Italy it doesn’t work that way. In Italy, a woman, even if she likes you, she would not tell you that straight to your face. It’s always the man who has to make the move. It’s always the man who has to please her, it’s always the man who has to be the gentleman opening the door or pull the chair back or bring her flowers. Pay the bills when you go out.
BC: That’s interesting. I would think Italian women were more liberated and strong-minded and sexual.
LS: No, not really, not at all. They’re teasers. (laughs) You know, they will not leave the house until they look perfect. Even to go to the grocery store, they’ll have their makeup on, their heels on, and their tight pants or skirt on. And they look beautiful and sexy all the time…but they’re teasers.
BC: How did you get into bartending?
LS: I always liked to go to bars when I was a teenager. I had a passion for playing billiards. When I was 15, I went to work in a bar. Actually it was more of a barista at that point. I served cappuccino and breakfast and some liquor. And after that I had seasonal jobs and temporary jobs, and bartending was the job that I had easiest access to. So when I came here to the States, that was the easiest thing for me to do. First job I had here was at the Northwoods Supper Club. Then I went to JT’s Shaft, and then after that I came to the Landmark.
BC: In Europe, bartending is considered a very serious profession, much more so than here.
Livio Stablie loves the art of mixology and the opportunity bartending gives him to meet lots of different people. (photo by Ron Caspi)
LS: Yes, that’s true. In my country, we see it as a profession. I worked in a very high end bar there. We dressed in jackets with golden buttons on top. It was a classy, classy place and it was there that I learned mixology. I loved it, I absolutely loved it. There was another difference. When I bartended there, I knew everything that was going on in the bar, all the conversations. Ten feet away, I knew what they were talking about. Here, I don’t know what’s going on because the background conversations are all white noise to me.
BC: What is it that you find so appealing about bartending?
LS: The social aspect. The fact that I’m exposed every night to different people and share some words and experiences with them. Sometimes I think I should get a job working 9-5, but then I think at 9:30 or 10 at night, I’d go crazy. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.
BC: What’s the most memorable thing that’s ever happened to you as a bartender?
LS: Well, once after closing the bar one night, I ended up hanging out until four in the morning with a guy I had known for about a year, but just as a customer. And he totally opened up to me and I found out this guy was a multi-multi millionaire with a crazy life that put things in perspective for me. You know, I realized his life wasn’t any better than mine. He’s got hundreds of millions of dollars and he travels all over the world, he has conference calls at five in the morning, he’s got women all over the world but he’s married here, and he’s got kids all over the world. His life is a chaos. He looks like a pretty happy person and he keeps it together. But to me it was a mind-blower, because everybody’s always trying to make more money, more money, more money, but then you wonder, what’s really important? Me having a million dollars or me having a beautiful family around me?
BC: Let’s talk about women at the bar. You’re a good-looking guy, an Italian no less. Do women come on to you?
LS: Yeah, sometimes but it hasn’t been overwhelming. One thing I’ve noticed about American women is they have respect for married men. They see my ring. So a lot of times I hear, ‘Oh, if only you weren’t married!’ But besides that, I don’t really get a straight approach where they say “Come to my room,” or anything like that.
BC: What’s you favorite drink at the bar?
LS: Favorite drink? A Manhattan, a bourbon Manhattan. It’s a bold drink, it’s got the strong flavor from the whiskey and the sweetness from the sweet vermouth and the dash of bitters just tops if off.
BC: You came over to the States about fifteen years ago. Are you living the life you expected? Are you living the American dream?
LS: I tend not to think too far ahead, I prefer more to live in the present but looking back and thinking where I started and coming over here with absolutely nothing, and looking where I am right now with my own house, my car—you know, nothing fancy—and a beautiful family with my wife…yeah, I’m happy, I’m very happy.
BC: How about fifteen years into the future? What do you hope to be doing?
LS: Fifteen years from now, hopefully my two sons are all grown up, and then maybe my wife and I can go to a tropical place… something very simple with a white sandy beach, clean water, little restaurant by the beach, little bar with a dance floor… where we can dance the night away.
BC: Thank you, Livio.
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