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Lousy goddamn hipsters help 90-year-old bar turn a profit

gottscheer hall
Knit caps and old heads, united by their one true love: alcohol at low prices in a comfortable atmosphere. via Gotscheer Hall

The thing about hipsters, beyond the fact that they’re a poorly-defined amorphous blob of young people who sometimes wear funny hats, is that they want the same thing as you. They don’t always want a farm-to-table cocktail mixed with the earnest tears of the distiller who made the whiskey, sometimes they just want a damn beer. Sometimes so many of them do that hey, your old bar will turn a profit for the first time in fifteen years, which is the situation Ridgewood’s Gotscheer Hall is finding itself in according to the Queens Courier.

Gotscheer Hall is a 90-year-old Ridgewood bar that had been popular with the area’s German immigrants, but had been seeing less and less of them as they died off. The bar was on its way to shutting down, until 2012, when an influx of young idiots with money to spend turned things around and Gotscheer Hall actually made money. The Courier talked to a bunch of self-aware young people who couldn’t help but give self-aware quotes about cultural tourism and authenticity as young people are wont to do, but the important thing is that the bar was saved while still being itself and offering cheap beer and German food. What a surprise those appeal to people of any age.

Of course, when the landlord jacks up the rent in two years to clear the way for an artisan cocktail bar, remember to blame kids who just want to drink instead of greed and the landlord, because “the market” and in America we will excuse pretty much anyone for anything they do to make money.

15 Comments

  1. Hi Brokelyn

    I know your article is supposed to be kind of funny but…

    Just letting you know Gottscheer Hall owns the building. I believe the event hall is owned by over 500 Gottschee shareholders for over 90 years. So if you are going to say some snark about the business can you actually research first like a journalist should? Gottscheer Hall will be fine in two years and there will be no artisanal bar and I am happy for them. Also this is Queens… dawg. Give our borough some credit.

    Thank you!

    S

  2. Daniel Carlucci

    So if this hadn’t happened, would there be an article titled “Awesome fucking Ridgwood natives of German descent don’t spend enough money at 90 year old Gotscheer Hall, so its closing” ?

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