Goodbye Blue Monday Bar / Café / Coffee Shop / Live Music Venue

BUSHWICK, NEW YORK –

From Goodbye Blue Monday’s scrap yard décor right down to its Vonnegut-referencing title, this one-room coffee shop and live music venue has a stylized yet relaxed Wes Anderson-esque vibe that attracts both mods and indie rockers.

A small sound booth surrounded by ceiling-high shelves stacked with records is just the beginning, as every available bit of wall overflows with towers of dusty books, old portraits, ancient record players, and antique televisions, while the air space is cluttered with dangling skis, dolls, and 45s. The end result is an old-school DIY attitude that keeps the stylishly shabby venue from feeling pretentious.

Twenty-something indie rock chicks, pierced bike messengers, and college students brave enough to travel to Bushwick settle in on lawn chairs and old tires to sip coffee and red wine at the sturdy bar or out in the messy artist studio/patio, while local performers pound out jazz, blues, indie rock, and even klezmer from the tiny stage in the corner.

In keeping with its hodgepodge philosophy, the bar also hosts everything from comedians, belly dancers, and open mic nights to the Bushwick Book Club, a local musicians’ group dedicated to writing literary music based on their most recent reads.

Quaint but cool, welcoming but out of the way, and with a motley crowd of indie regulars, Goodbye Blue Monday is one of the more relevant members of the young artist movement Brooklyn has so lovingly fostered.