“More hipsters than you can shake an ironic mustache at” inhabit this, the crown jewel of hipster brunching and all that is skinny-jeaned. Luckily we have local status due to good friends who live across the street; otherwise they’d throw me, Monsieur Hipster, out on my extremely unhip leather Cole Haan wallet. We decided to brunch in the homey confines of the restaurant’s worn interior so as to not catch the stares from the bedraggled kids worn out from a week of carrying around their guitars and spending dad’s paycheck on Dolphin short-shorts at the local Salvation Army. Luckily 11:30 is a little early for the average hipster, so we had the place mostly to ourselves. Technically in Green Point, perhaps the cool quotient isn’t quite what it would be if a hipster tornado picked the place up and placed it 200 yards down the road in neighboring Williamsburg, but its proximity to the McCarren Pool and the surrounding park actually makes it a prime destination for every manner of young Brooklyn family with their requisite Bugaboo in tow (before they move on to Montclair). It literally looked like an $800 stroller pile up as the late morning wore on. The space is comfortable and relatively unadorned, with largish booths and some more typical worn wood tables and chairs, along with what was an unplugged pinball machine. My food was pretty run of the mill, but Hipster Jr. had the chocolate chip pancakes, which were pretty damn awesome. Luckily the kid eats like a very small bird, so the rest of the table got to vulture off his plate. It was an overall fun neighborhood experience, and one that I’m sure we’ll repeat in the coming years as we now bring Hipster Jr. and Hipster Jr. Jr. in the VW to Brooklyn to visit our friends and show the kids a neighborhood their great grandfather, a Williamsburg native, wouldn’t recognize in a million years. [MF]
560 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn
718/349-3859
