So, we’re at Athens Bar Show looking for Hospitality Gems that we have never met before. We are in a seminar called “How To Get Brands To Pay For Your Champagne” or something to that effect. The speaker makes reference to someone sitting in the room and an incredibly distinct laugh rings out. We turn around and see a tattooed giggling punk rocker and think “Got one!”. Then we interrupted her after the seminar while she was eating a hot dog to interview and photograph her. Basically, meeting Aimee was a 12/10 experience.
Bartender Atlas: What’s your name?
Aimee May D’onofrioo: It’s Aimee May D’onofrio from Smoking Kills Bar. We are advertised on every box of cigarettes around the world.
BA: What is your role in the hospitality industry?
AD: So I supply all the bartenders for one of the biggest music festivals in South Africa. I have 800 bartenders that I look after and then I own a safe space for queer, punk, alternative POCs in Joburg. I’m trying to combine cocktails and chaos in a way that allows people to, for the first time, be able to get a good drink, without having to be pretentious and scared. I know that when I went into my first cocktail bar because of how I look- I’m very tattooed, I’m alternative, I am queer – I didn’t feel at home seeing people in speakeasy environments. So I’m trying to give them that level of cocktail without having to change the way they are and for them all to feel at home.
BA: Where do you go out to eat and drink on your days off? When you’re not organizing music festivals and running bars and providing spaces, where do you go out to eat and drink?
AD: When I’m not at home ’cause I fucking love Smoking Kills, then I go to Sin+Tax which was a top 50 Best Bar as well. I go and drink there. I always drink a Daiquiri because they nail it and it’s one of the few places I can get a fucking good Daiquiri. And then I go to Obscura as well, which has more of a fine dining atmosphere but the drinks and food are impeccable. Like, for me to tell you, go have the broccoli: the broccoli fucks.
BA: I’ve never heard the broccoli fucks before. What do you do that isn’t work-related on your days off?
AD: I play a lot of video games.
BA: What kind of video games? What are you playing?
AD: So the coolest thing about being in Greece is that my favorite video game is Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and I feel like I’m Kassandra walking around the city. So that was like bucket list right there.
BA: Would you say you’re a music person or a movie person?
AD: Both. I’ve got five of my favorite movies tattooed on my leg.
BA: What are the movies?
AD: Secretary, Fight Club, Wristcutters: A Love Story, which sounds depressing, but it’s happy as hell…
BA:…okay …
AD:… and then Trainspotting.
BA: Who’s your favourite fictional bartender?
AD: Nick and Nora. Nick and Nora definitely. That’s what I’m getting tattooed on my arm next.
I’m also a music person, so there is a band from South Africa called Twenty One Children. They played their first show at my bar. We put them on a lineup that they weren’t meant to be on and now they’re on the Tony Hawk soundtrack. So yeah, all about giving punks an opportunity to be part of this cocktail industry and feel at home in something that is often taken away from them because of pricing, because of atmosphere, because of all of that.
BA: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
AD: The number one thing that will ruin relationships, be it friendships, love, all of it, is expectations, ’cause the minute you expect people to do something and they don’t fulfill that role, you’re disappointed but they never knew that they had that expectation on them. So never expect anything, and also everything in moderation, especially moderation.
BA: What is one thing you’re excited about?
AD: Seeing what I can do in the next few years. I started bartending at 29 during COVID. Alcohol was illegal in South Africa. So I stayed at home. I was unemployed for eight months, learned how to be a bartender and entered my first competition. Ironically enough, we are standing in front of the Patron stand and I entered that, made top 10 in South Africa before I’d ever worked a shift and learned to be a bartender through there.
In five years from now, I wanna be able to look at this moment and go, “Look what you’ve done in five years.”
RETURN TO ALL HOSPITALITY GEMS
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Posted November 10th, 2026
