Snuck over to Brooklyn for a long weekend this summer. I had so much on my To Do List, but spent most of my time around North Brooklyn — Williamsburg, Bushwick, Bed-Stuy. (Read up on some quick and important history about North Brooklyn at the end of the post! 🧠)

Here’s what I got into! As always, we’re centering:

🤎 Black, Brown, Asian, Indigenous, Latinx
❣️ Woman-Owned
🌈 2SLGBTQIA+
(⭐️ My Personal Favorites!)

Friday

🥯 Pastrami Lox Bagels @ Frankel’s
My first bite in NYC did not disappoint. I truly couldn’t describe the pastrami flavor to you but it was delicious and I would order it again.

🍦🤎⭐️ Pastel de Nata and Soft Serve @ Lisbonata
Mouthwatering traditional Portuguese dessert cups with a perfectly crispy crust and creamy filling. And refreshing soft serve bursting with seasonal flavors. Curbside ordering with a line down the sidewalk. No indoor seating and it was a pretty hot day. Pricey but 10/10 fantastic flavors and refreshing.

🚴🏻‍♀️ Bicycling Around Brooklyn on E-Bikes. $25 for a day pass, convenient docking stations nearby most of our stops. Subway was also pretty convenient but was a bit hot and crowded at times.

🍷❣️ Cordelia Wine Bar & Bookstore
Dipped inside Cordelia for an AC break and some hydration. One long wall lined with bookshelves full of books, buzzing with queer energy and cute vintage vibes, good service.

🌼 WNYC Transmitter Park
Pleasant stroll around a waterfront park with a large mural and some good views. Convenient location near several restaurants/bars.

🍷🌈⭐️ Half-Priced Oysters @ El Pingüino
Nice bar top seating for happy hour. $2.25 oysters were too good to pass up. Elevated vibes and service.

One Chill Saturday

🥯 Kicked off the day with another Lox Bagel @ Frankels. They’re called Nova Bagels in Brooklyn! Yummy.

🛍️ Artists & Flea Weekend Market. Cute indoor market with rotating local shops, some clothing, vintage jewelry, art and home goods. Wide range of pricing from items <$20 to $500+. Regret not buying the “I Like Cherries” shirt from one of the apparel designers.

🍷🤎 $1 Oysters @ The Ten Bells. Spanish-inspired bites. The Patatas Bravas had a nice heat to them. Tbh you get what you pay for with the $1 oysters. A few were very small and poorly shucked. Perfect little outdoor patio for good weather days.

📚🌈 Booksweat: A QTPOC Book Swap @ The Bush. Hosted by Wratchet Studies @ a lesbian bar. Popped in here briefly to check it out, but didn’t have a book with me to participate in the book swap. Friendly event hosts.

Sunday

🍴 Kicked off the day with some lunch at the TimeOut Market near the Brooklyn Bridge. We had a Crunchy Chicken Caesar Wrap @ Jacob’s Pickles. Iconic! An indoor food market with plenty of food options, incase you’re looking for something different.

🛍️ Vintage Finds @ Brooklyn Flea Market. A large outdoor market with many vendors, some vintage home goods, upcycled clothing, art, and more. Some thrifted, some new. Worth a stop.

🛍️❣️ Local Snacks @ Maison Jar, a refillery and low-waste grocery store. Bring your own containers or grab one there. Found some locally-made chocolate bars to bring back to Seattle.

🌈 Dyke Darty @ the Rosemont
Pre-purchased tickets for this and had high hopes that fell short. Literally, such a SHORT show… Event details: 4pm doors, 6pm show, 8pm end. Reality: 6:09 arrival, 6:40pm wrap 👎🏽 The vibes were solid for those 30min? Nice outdoor patio? Not much else to share. The L-shaped venue made it tough for visibility, even with a smaller crowd.

🍷🍴⭐️ Dinner @ Ainslie
In a city that never sleeps, the happy hours can go pretty late! So we enjoyed a lovely Italian dinner at happy hour prices from 6-8pm on a Sunday. Bolognese, mussels in broth, a little pizza and salad. Yummy! Splendid restaurant filled with plants and high ceilings and brick. Also some sidewalk tables.

Monday

🥯⭐️ Bagel sandwiches @ Apollo Bagels. I think these were by favorite of the weekend! Two fish options, couldn’t pass it up. But almost got a tomato on shmear (very popular) for $7!

🗽 A quick peek of the Statue of Liberty @ Domino Park, visible but far away.

🥯 More Bagels @ Pop Up Bagel. For the flight home, I swear!

🎨 Attempted Flash Tattoos @ NYC Tattoo Parlor. They had a pretty great $44 flash tattoo deal in August, but we walked by 15mins after open and they weren’t open yet.

🧴❣️ Body Care @ Soap Cherie. Stopped by this family-owned boutique to grab some locally made, natural bath & body products.

Honorable Mentions

These were high on my list but I ran out of time to catch everything! And there are many, many others.

The Bechdel Project, a feminist arts incubator for dramatic writers
BLK MKT Vintage and Interior Design 🤎
Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse(free kayaking!)
Boyfriend Co-Op Cafe & Bar 🌈
Bushwick Market
Cafe Erzuli 🤎 — A Haitian-American-owned cafe by day that transforms into a backyard cocktail lounge and community arts space by night, celebrating Black and Caribbean culture.
Dyke Beer 🌈, a local beer brand
Edy’s Grocer 🤎🌈 queer-owned Lebanese market and deli
Ginger’s Bar 🌈
Good Days 🌈 American restaurant and cocktail bar with a back patio that hosts curated sapphic dinners, community mixers, and industry events
Oberon 🌈 Brooklyn’s newest queer cocktail bar and haven “where heritage meets hedonism”
Soft Butch Cafe 🌈 the cafe with “strong hands and sweet talkers”
Ursula 🤎🌈 — James Beard Award-nominated New Mexican-inspired cuisine. Its sustainable beverage menu prioritizes Queer, Woman, Femme, Black, POC, and Indigenous producers — with a focus on environmental stewardship, ancestral techniques, and community-centered economics.

Until next time, Brooklyn!

🧠 Some Brief History

North Brooklyn was originally stewarded by the Canarsie and Munsee Lenape before European colonization created a 19th-century industrial waterfront. This manufacturing economy drew working-class laborers, leading to postwar enclaves like the Satmar Hasidic community and South Williamsburg’s Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhood, Los Sures. Following mid-century systemic neglect and the 1977 blackout arson crisis, local Black and Latine residents launched fierce grassroots campaigns to tenaciously rebuild Bushwick.

By the late 1990s, creatives transformed vacant factories into DIY hubs, cementing the area's modern identity. Today, Williamsburg and Bushwick are global epicenters for alternative, trans-inclusive queer nightlife, anchored by venues like House of Yes and The Rosemont’s backyard patio. This legacy of BIPOC resilience and queer liberation stretches to the waterfront at Marsha P. Johnson State Park, anchoring a broader Brooklyn landscape defined by Bed-Stuy’s Black cultural epicenter, Flatbush’s Caribbean markets, and Coney Island’s iconic boardwalk.

XO

Brooklyn, NYC in 4 Days: A QTBIPOC’s Guide for the Best Bagels, Flea Markets & Third Spaces