Bushwick now has a cocktail bar that doubles as a late-night science field trip. The Museum Bar + Gift Shop has taken over 1329 Willoughby Avenue, filling its rooms with glowing fossils, crystals and dinosaur heads while pouring drinks that read like lab notes. Up front, an eight-seat, café-style Gift Shop pours lower‑ABV spritzes and milk punches, and in the back a dim main bar runs a "permanent collection" of cocktails alongside rotating thematic exhibits.
Co-founder Misha Chavez traced the whole project back to a childhood obsession with science and animals and a desire to bring that sense of discovery into a grown-up bar setting, she told Time Out New York. Chavez opened the spot with Bill Liu, and lead bartender Bobbi Adler described every drink as "research‑driven," with dinosaurs chosen as the first temporary theme, according to that report.
Drinks That Double As Exhibits
The permanent menu leans into the science-lab fantasy. There is an Insectarium, a Negroni‑style drink built with honey gin, fig, red bitter, black ants, wormwood and crickets; an Ocean Life cocktail built on rum, coconut, lime and curaçao with cuttlefish ink; and a Fossil Record that mixes reposado tequila with sesame, sherry and turmeric, per Eater New York. Chef Trevon Reffell’s snacks move across the map with sweet banana acra fritters, shishito peppers with suya and garlic aioli, Pad Dan noodles and a plate of dinosaur‑shaped chicken nuggets served with a house Carolina‑style barbecue sauce.
Two Bars Under One Roof
Guests first walk into the compact Gift Shop bar, an eight‑seat café-style nook that focuses on tea-, coffee- and pastry‑inspired low‑ABV drinks. From there, a doorway leads into an exhibition-like backroom where the full‑strength cocktails live, according to Time Out New York. The design leans hard into a cabinet‑of‑curiosities feel, with personal collections and crystals lining an "Exhibition Hall" that turns the whole space into a kind of nocturnal museum tour.
Practical Details
The Museum Bar + Gift Shop opened in mid‑June and lists 1329 Willoughby Avenue as its address, roughly a block from the Jefferson stop on the L line, per industry listings. Hours run Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 5 p.m. to midnight and Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., according to OpenTable. The space is walk‑in only and has already been slotted into several new‑openings guides this month.
The Museum arrives as part of a wave of high‑concept openings across Brooklyn this summer, a trend editors have been tracking on new‑openings guides and heat maps, including The Infatuation. Early reaction suggests the bar sticks to its museum bit without letting the theme overwhelm the actual drink-making, marking it as one of Bushwick’s stranger and more disciplined late‑night options this season, per local roundups.
