Former marine Dan Cipriani is the man behind Brooklyn's coolest nightspots

Dan Cipriani is the man behind Brooklyn's most Instagram-friendly bars, from The Ledge, a retro millennial pink hub, to Gemelli, a year-round rooftop bar that serves up heaping bowls of pasta (and wine aplenty, of course).

After growing up in Pittsburgh, Cipriani originally joined the Marines before spending some time working in movies on the production side. He’s also a surfer, sailor and skateboarder. He currently lives in Bushwick with his wife and seven children - as well as two turtles, a cat, and Piglet (a rescue dog, not a pig).

While he was filming The Crow in Wilmington, North Carolina, Cipriani found himself struggling to find a decent cup of coffee. His solution? Open his own cafe. First called Plan B Coffee, the cafe later became a live music venue, The Bourgeois Pig.

Cipriani ended up missing New York and moved back and has been working in the hospitality scene ever since. He’s opened up party destinations in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as well as in the now-trendy Rockaway Beach.

His latest projects are Bushwick-based, including Sea Wolf, which is a “dock-to-dish” restaurant that Vogue aptly dubbed “the epicenter of the hipster universe” and Gemelli, a tasty Italian rooftop restaurant also in Bushwick and sits in a space that’s wildly Instagram-worthy. The same space houses The Ledge, a monochromatic, millennial pink bar straight off a Pinterest page.

He has also opened destinations upstate, including the Eastwind Hotel and Bar in the Catskills, which is known for its luxury glamping.

The nightlife expert most recently opened JJ’s Hideaway, where punters include the actress Rose McGowan. The bar has a light-up dance floor and pays homage to 1980s nightclubs in New York City, with art from British artist Patrick Church and a low-key cocktail menu.

Tell me about your first hospitality endeavor - the cafe you opened in North Carolina. How did you decide to open it?

I was working on location for a movie filming in Wilmington, NC when a tragic accident on set led to an extended hiatus. While we were waiting for production to resume, I had a lot of free time so I decided to open a cafe just so we could all find a place to get a good cup of coffee. I used my design and building background to create the space, which I called Plan B Coffee. It was really successful. A year later, I converted it to The Bourgeois Pig, a live music venue and bar because I liked beer and punk rock.

Why did you decide to move back to New York? What did you miss the most while you were gone?

After this cafe-turned-music venue project in North Carolina, I fell in love with the hospitality industry, but I missed the buzz of NYC. I sold The Bourgeois Pig and returned to New York in 1999. Since then, I've designed, built and operated retail stores, bars, restaurants and hotels in and around New York, from Bushwick to the Catskills.

You’ve lived in Bushwick for years - how have you seen the neighborhood change?

My first apartment in Bushwick was a 5,000 square-foot former sewing factory that I converted into a loft for $900 a month. In this space, I built a shop, a skateboard ramp and even a playground for my daughter because it was a pretty dangerous area at the time. Of course, now the rent’s gone up, but the thing that surprises me the most is the tourism scene in Bushwick. It’s mind-blowing to me that people now come from all over the world to see our little slice of heaven.