Principles GI Coffee House ★9.7

The letters in the name are not decoration. During the Vietnam War, coffeehouses opened outside American military bases where enlisted soldiers could talk, read, listen to music and organize without an officer in the room — they were called GI coffeehouses, and they were among the strangest and most durable institutions the antiwar movement produced. Principles GI Coffee House is a deliberate revival of that idea, set down in Gowanus by a Marine Corps veteran, with the bicycle standing in for the barracks. It is a coffee shop where the coffee is genuinely good and is also, transparently, not the point.

Highlights

• No tipping, at all — the owner calls the practice arcane and antiquated, having lived on tips herself, and pays wages well above what the industry treats as normal instead.
• Pay what you want for basic brewed coffee — including nothing, if that is what you have; customers with money are asked, openly, to carry those without.
• Rotating guest roasters — there is no house bean, so the batch brew is a different coffee on different visits and the pour-over is the order that rewards attention.
• The most bike-friendly room in the city — a tool library, pumps, secure parking at the back and free repair classes, not a rack bolted to the sidewalk.
• Everything on the food side is vegan — the whole case, without exception, including doughnuts brought in from a dedicated vegan bakery.
• Free means free — restrooms, water, Wi-Fi and the bike tools are available whether or not you buy anything, and that policy is written down rather than implied.

What’s in the cup

Principles does not roast and, unusually, does not have a single roasting partner either. It runs a rotating guest roaster program: the beans on the grinder change, so the coffee you drink in March is not the coffee you drank in January, and regulars treat the batch brew as a small ongoing education rather than as a fixed product. People who follow specialty coffee describe finding rare and eccentric lots here that would not survive on a menu that had to be identical every day.

The consequence is that the pour-over is the order to make if you came for the coffee itself. It is where the rotating lots are shown honestly, and where the counter will actually talk to you about what is in the cup. The espresso side is competent and unfussy — this is not a room where a flat white is treated as an event — and the milk drinks are made properly for people who want them.

The menu itself is built to remove friction rather than to display expertise. Drinks come in one size, which sounds like a small thing until you notice how much of the ordering anxiety in a specialty café comes from being asked to make choices you have no basis for. The categories are named plainly and a little mischievously — milky, fancy milky, fancy not-milky — which is a joke with a serious point underneath it: you do not have to know the vocabulary to order confidently here.

Everything is served in a real mug or glass if you are staying. It is a small operational decision that says most of what the café believes about itself.

Who’s behind it

Katie Bishop grew up in Prescott, Arizona, and joined the Marine Corps out of high school for a reason most enlistees would not recognize: she wanted to play music, and she spent three years as a bassoonist in the United States Marine Corps Band, stationed in Georgia. After the service she took an undergraduate degree and then a master’s in music composition at Queens College, worked behind other people’s coffee counters, and eventually crowdfunded a café of her own, which opened in Gowanus in the autumn of 2022.

She named it Principles as a standing instruction to herself: a business run against a written set of commitments rather than against whatever the month required. The GI in the name is the historical anchor — the antiwar coffeehouses of the Vietnam era, built as places where people who had been handed a uniform could think out loud. Bishop describes her own service as giving her a complicated view of American idealism rather than a simple one, and the café she built is aimed squarely at veterans, queer people, and, in her own framing, everyone who is not expressly welcome in ordinary rooms.

The business is certified as veteran-owned, woman-owned, LGBTQ+-owned and disabled-owned. In 2025 a documentary about the café, directed by Eric Sciole, premiered at the New York City Bicycle Film Festival — which is the correct festival for it, and tells you how thoroughly the bike world has adopted the place.

What it’s for

This is one of the few cafés in Brooklyn that is unambiguously built for staying, and it is worth understanding why before you choose it.

For laptop work it is close to the top of the borough. The room is large, the Wi-Fi is free and explicitly offered to anyone, there are outlets, the seating includes both solo tables and space to spread out, and — crucially — nobody is watching the clock on your behalf. The no-tipping model removes the low-grade transactional pressure that a tip jar creates; there is no implied rent on your chair. The trade-off is that this is a daytime café that shuts in the afternoon on most days, so plan a working session for the first half of the day rather than the evening.

For conversation it is equally strong, because the space is big enough that talking does not mean broadcasting. Groups fit here in a way they do not fit in most specialty rooms, and the café actively programs for them — social events, screenings, sober meetings and community gatherings run in the same space.

For cyclists it is in a category of its own. There is a tool library you can use, pumps, secure parking at the back rather than a hopeful chain on a signpost, and free repair classes. If you ride in this city, this is the room where you can arrive mid-mechanical-failure and leave with the bike fixed and a coffee in your hand.

For a fast takeaway it is the least suited of the five uses. The counter is friendly rather than mechanized, and the whole architecture of the place — real mugs, one size, conversation — is built around people who came in to be there.

The space

It is big, and that is the first thing everyone says. The room reads as part workshop, part bike shop, part living room: eclectic decor, pride flags, a lot of mismatched furniture, and enough floor area that two entirely different things can be happening at once without either being ruined. Nobody would call it minimal. People describe it as hipsterish and then immediately say they love it, which is about right.

The practical infrastructure is unusually good and unusually deliberate: it is wheelchair accessible, there are two restrooms that are kept clean and are open to anyone who walks in, and the bike parking is indoors at the back. The café states plainly that the bathrooms, the water, the Wi-Fi and the tools are free to everyone regardless of whether they buy anything — a policy most businesses in New York quietly practice in reverse.

The atmosphere follows from the ownership rather than from the furniture. Guests who are trans, queer or otherwise used to reading a room before relaxing in it describe this one as the rare place where that scan is unnecessary. That is difficult to design and impossible to fake.

Beyond coffee

Yes, and with one hard rule: the entire food offer is vegan, without exception. This is not a café with a vegan section; it is a café where the question does not arise. The case is supplied rather than baked on site — doughnuts come in from a dedicated vegan doughnut maker, and there is a rotating supporting cast of vegan and gluten-free bakes from other small producers.

There is no kitchen and no cooked breakfast. What there is, is a pastry case that changes, sells through, and is worth asking about rather than scanning: the doughnuts in particular have their own following and are gone when they are gone.

When to come

This is a daytime café. It opens for the working morning and closes in the afternoon on most days, so the useful planning rule is simple: come for the morning or the early part of the day, not for the evening — unless there is an event on, which is the exception and is announced ahead.

Weekday mornings are the best working window, when the room is calm and the seating is open. Weekends bring cyclists, families and the community programming, and the mood shifts from quiet to sociable. If you are coming specifically for the pour-over and a conversation about what is on the grinder, come when the counter is not three deep.

Getting there

Gowanus, in the low industrial blocks near the canal, on the border where Park Slope’s hill flattens out toward the water. The nearest subway is the F and G trains’ Smith–Ninth Streets stop, the highest elevated platform in the New York system and worth the walk for the view alone; the 4th Avenue–9th Street stop on the F, G and R lines is the alternative and connects the café to the rest of the borough.

Realistically, though, a very large share of the people in this room arrived by bicycle. The neighborhood’s protected lanes and the flat run along the canal make it easy riding, and the café’s own bike facilities mean you are not spending the visit worrying about what is locked up outside. Driving is possible but pointless — this is a corner of Brooklyn built for two wheels.

Good to know

Do not tip. It is not modesty on the staff’s part; the café has removed tipping as a matter of policy and the menu is priced to carry proper wages instead. If you want to contribute more, the mechanism is the pay-what-you-want brewed coffee — pay above the suggestion and you are subsidizing someone who paid below it.

Bring your bike inside. Use the bathroom without buying anything if that is what you need. Ask what is on the grinder, because it will have changed. And if you are bringing a group, this is one of the few specialty rooms in Brooklyn that can genuinely absorb one.

The honest limitations: the café closes early by New York standards, the food is entirely vegan so a bacon-and-egg breakfast is not on offer at any price, and the higher menu prices that fund the wage model are real and the café does not hide them. Whether that is a drawback or the entire point depends on what you came for.

Questions and answers

Is it really true that you should not tip?

Yes. The café operates a no-tipping model on principle — the owner has spoken publicly about why — and staff are paid substantially above the industry norm instead. Adding a tip is not expected and not necessary.

What does pay-what-you-want actually mean here?

Basic brewed coffee is offered on a pay-what-you-can basis, down to nothing at all. Customers who can afford more are openly invited to pay more, which is how the model funds itself.

Is it a good place to work on a laptop?

One of the best in the area. Free Wi-Fi, outlets, a large room, no pressure to keep buying, and enough space to actually spread out. Plan for the earlier part of the day, because the café is not an evening venue.

What makes it bike-friendly?

A tool library and pumps you can use, secure bicycle parking indoors at the back, and free repair classes. It functions as a clubhouse for street cyclists as much as a café.

Is all the food vegan?

Yes, without exception — the entire case, including the doughnuts, which come from a vegan bakery. There is no kitchen and no cooked breakfast.

Who is it for?

Explicitly, everyone — but the café was built with veterans, queer and trans people, disabled people and anyone else who is used to being unwelcome in mind, and it is certified as veteran-, woman-, LGBTQ+- and disabled-owned.

Which coffee should I order?

The pour-over, if you want to taste what the rotating guest roaster program is actually doing. The batch brew is the cheaper and more experimental route and changes constantly.

Are there facilities if I am not buying anything?

Yes. The restrooms, the drinking water, the Wi-Fi and the bike tools are stated as free to anyone, purchase or no purchase. There are two restrooms and they are kept clean.

Opening hours