Yesterday, The New York Times featured a story on a new breed of bars popping up around the United States: charitable bars. The newspaper noted that a “new generation of beer halls dedicated to something beyond the cash register is cropping up around the nation and the world, with proceeds going not into an owner’s wallet but to charity…”
One of the philanthropic bars mentioned in the story included the Original OKRA Charity Saloon, which opened in Houston last month. Every month, the bar allows patrons to vote which Houston-based charity should receive the bar’s proceeds from that month.
Though the newspaper article encouraged patrons to question the true charitable nature of these up-and-coming bars, the Original OKRA Charity Saloon took to Facebook this morning to clarify that the beer house is a 501(c)(6) Not-For-Profit Corporation, and that it “really [does] give 100% of [its] profits to charity after paying for all standard bar costs – product, employee wages, rent, etc.”
