Mikey's Hookup opened in the Williamsburg Mini Mall on Bedford Ave and N. 5th in the summer of 2001, originally just a kiosk where Mikey Weiss sold AV cables, blank CDs and other similar items you couldn't find in the neighborhood at the time. From there he moved into one of the Mini Mall's, stores before relocating to the N. 6th St location that he still occupies today. A former member of ska punk band Dance Hall Crashers, Weiss also began stocking the store with guitar strings and cables, mics, adapters, and other "emergency" gear he as a musician found himself in need of on tour. The store is now also a licensed Mac dealer and service center, and they carry turntables, vintage receivers and tons of other stuff. You can also play ping pong there. In 2019, Mikey's Hookup went bicoastal with a Los Angeles store in Silverlake, as well.
To celebrate the store's 20th anniversary, Mikey's is doing a retrospective documentary series that not just looks at the store but at the early-'00s era of Williamsburg, as well. The series features appearances and interviews with Sharon Van Etten, Amedeo Pace (Blonde Redhead), Tami Stronach (The Neverending Story), artist Nick Kuszyk, filmmaker Marc Lafia, Zebulon owners Jef and Joce Soubiran, and more. There's also footage from and MTV shoot and a Joanna Angel porn movie that was shot there. Watch the first three installments below.