It's not enough to serve craft beer, have a bartender with a beard, piercings, and sleeve tats, and have some indie bands on the stereo to attract a hipster crowd nowadays. The market is super saturated, and there are just too many hipster bars in Brooklyn. So, if you want to carve out a niche for your new place, you need to target the eco-conscious hipster kids. This is a bit more of a specific bar niche, and one where you can still make a name for your bar.

If you and your business partners have leased a space and are in the process of doing a build out for a new bar, then here are a few suggestions to help you make the bar eco-conscious and attract a hip crowd that's into issues of environmental impact, as well as craft beer and Bon Iver.

Use As Much Reclaimed Wood (With A Story) As Possible

Not only is reclaimed wood good for the environment, it's cool. And the more interesting the background, the better. What you should look for is reclaimed wood from old barns. You can find beams, planking, and studs that have been taken from old, collapsed barns and have been planed down, sanded, and have had the old nails removed. They are perfectly fine for use in your bar build. You might even request some beams that have the nails removed, but are otherwise left alone.

You can use these for support beams in visible sections of the bar. It will give the new bar a vintage look, and the eco-friendly crowd will love the story. They can sit and drink among timber that was used on some upstate farm a hundred years ago. They will love that it's preventing deforestation, and there's a cool story about where the wood came from.

If you're looking for more help with reclaimed wood, contact a company like L & L Reclaimed Wood, LLC for more help.

Organic Beer, Sustainable Food

The more organic and local the brew, the better. Try and avoid the major conglomerates and opt for small scale production breweries. There are lots of different companies that use organic ingredients. The more open about their ingredients, the better. For instance, you can find coffee stouts where the brewer explains on the bottle that they use fair trade coffee beans in the brewing process. Stuff like that is what you want.

If you are serving food, try and work with local community gardens, or find upstate farms that are small scale, organic, and community oriented. Many of these places make deliveries to Manhattan and Brooklyn, so you might not even have to take a trip up there to scout out produce, eggs, and meats.

Not Plastic, Only Glass, Maybe Mason Jars!

It goes without saying you don't want to be caught serving beer in red solo cups. This isn't a frat party, after all. Plus, plastic is anathema to the eco-conscious crowd. Only use glass. If you want to go all out, you can use reclaimed, vintage, small size mason jars as beer glasses.

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