10 Most Essential Aspects Of A Hipster Coffee Shop

A guide to the 10 most important necessities of a hipster coffee shop.

10. Apple Products

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Let’s be real. If you’re a hipster, you’re going to own all of the newest Apple products. A MacBook Pro, an Ipad, and an Iphone to complete the entire family, the whole shebang. A PC, along with all the rest of Microsoft’s products are clearly too mainstream for your liking and a thing of the past in your eyes. It’s essential to have your MacBook Pro out whenever you are in your local coffee shop to make sure everyone knows that you’re pretending to be J.K. Rowling and write the next best-selling novel. It seems quite baffling that you’re willing to spend $2000 plus on a computer but you supposedly go “thrifting” for clothing and drink PBR at the local bar. One word: pretentious.

9. Record Player

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The hipster coffee shop obviously isn’t complete without a record player of some sort. It doesn’t matter what type of record player you have, just that it works and you have an abundance of records to showcase your true passion for old rock music and indie folk music. And if you aren’t in a coffee shop, you probably have a collection of Bon Iver and Radiohead vinyl records that you’ll never listen to but at least you have them because that’s the hipster thing to do. You’re going to say that vinyl provides a more organic and real sound, but the rest of us aren’t going to believe it. As a matter of fact, I think my Bose speakers sound pretty damn good.

8. Plenty of Vegetarian / Vegan Options

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You aren’t a vegetarian or a vegan? Then don’t sit at this table or go to any sort of hipster café. If you’re a real hipster you’re probably growing your own food by now and have a vegetable garden in your living room. It’s called the “green” approach for any of you non-hipsters out there. Let me guess, your favorite weekend activity is taking your hipster boyfriend/girlfriend to the local farmer’s market so the two of you can get your fresh vegetables for the week because groceries stores just don’t do it for you….organic please. To top this all off I’m sure you have a compost bin outside of your house for your banana peels because you’re rescuing the world by doing so. Oh, and let’s not forget how you rescue dogs and cats in your free time as well.

7. Bike Rack Outside

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Of course there’s going to be a bike rack outside of every hipster coffee shop. Hipsters don’t drive cars, they ride on their bikes everywhere they go. Cars are awful; they are bad for the environment, they suck gas like crazy and are just simply too much money for the hipster minded person to own or use. Then when it comes to parking, hipsters think they’re so cool when they can pull up right in front of the coffee shop and park their bike, avoiding having to find a parking spot because hipsters just ain’t got time for that. You can’t just buy any bike though; it has to come from a garage sale and have the right retro style with the perfect amount of rust. And really, this whole fixed gear bike fad? You don’t even know how to ride them.

6. Ambiance With a Capital-A

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So…this coffee shop actually has to look like a hipster coffee shop too. Sanded wooden floors of course, covered with an overdyed Kilim rug just to add to the décor a little. The couches, well they have to be old couches with the vintage look that you’d probably find in your grandmother’s basement or somewhere like that. Orange, pink, green, that type of thing. Now the light fixtures might look a bit more modern in some places but more likely than not they’re probably made from old lanterns simply hung from the ceiling. And let’s not forget the menu for the café obviously needs to be written on a chalkboard because that’s just how hipster places do it and we need to be hipster. To compliment that chalkboard we also need to have a mini chalkboard outside with some crazy drawing on it or our featured tea of the day. Lastly, it isn’t a hipster coffee shop without art, lots of art. Just grab the most abstract art you can find and put it all over the walls, hipsters will love it!

5. Infinite Tea Options

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What hipster wouldn’t want to start a day without a crucial cup of fusion herbal tea imported from the Himalayas. The hipster coffee shop is not only about the beans but also offering a wide variety of tea selections. Every hipster has the goal to immerse themselves in as many different cultures as possible, one tea leaf at a time. The hipster coffee shop has teas for every type of occasion or mood you find yourself in on that given day. When enjoying tea one is not only drinking a hot liquid, they are connecting to a culture halfway around the world. If you can’t go to Azerbaijan, why not enjoy the tea they drink. The infinite selection of teas will have you in that zen mood from your first cup of the day to your last!

4. Commitment to Fair Trade and Organic Products

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One of the main questions hipsters ask at a coffee shop is “where exactly do the ingredients come from?” In today’s world, there are many shops doing it the wrong way but the hipster coffee shop is doing it totally 100% Kosher. The only ingredients served there, from the coffee to the teas, are all completely organic and through fair trade. You can practically still taste the dirt it comes from. When you come to a hipster coffee shop you are not only aiding a local business and quenching your thirst, but you are also supporting the trade of organic and healthier products. If you can be satisfied in your heart, body and mind, what could be better than that? Take that big corporations and mass production!

3. Only CA$H: No Credit Cards

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Another desirable aspect of the hipster coffee shop is its loyalty to only accepting cash instead of credit cards. In a world moving at the speed of light, hipster coffee shops take it a little chiller. At almost any store nowadays you can pull out your credit card but at a hipster coffee shop you get the feeling of returning to your roots through handling the crumpled up bills and coins. Credit Cards are a bit too futuristic. Efficiency is not a hipster coffee shop’s goal, creating a connection with the customer is. Finally, you know a coffee shop is really hipster if they let you off the hook if you forget the cash and instead tell you to just get them the next time you come in!

2. Built-in Library

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Leave your kindles at the door. A coffee shop can only achieve true hipster status if it has an in-store library. Coffee-shops and old books go together like a hipster and a beanie-scarf combination. Choose from your favorite classics like Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. What’s more hipster than spending your entire day reading a book for free at a coffee shop? If you’re a news-junkie, a real hipster coffee shop would have a stack of old newspapers from notable dates in history for you to indulge in your thirst for journalism while you quench your thirst for dark-roasted coffee. At a hipster coffee shop, your mind isn’t only invigorated through the caffeine but also the plentiful reading material.

1. Only Old-fashioned Coffee Presses

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“If it’s not broke then don’t fix it.” Old fashion coffee presses have been going out of style ever since Starbucks and other mass coffee producers realized that they could serve way more folks worse coffee for a higher product. That’s exactly why hipster coffee shops don’t indulge in that type of corporate disdain for producing quality coffee. When you enjoy your cup of Java you want to feel like your cup was the most important one prepared that day. Automatic coffee makers are nice but let’s be honest, you’re basically selling out by having them at your coffee shop. There’s nothing like seeing your barista making your drink with something that looks like it’s from the 17th century. Do it right, do it old-fashioned, do it hipster.