A Roller Rink With a Psychedelic Concession Stand Opens in Brooklyn

The founder of over-the-top Turk’s Inn, Varun Kataria is the mayor, creative director, and shepherd of a certain type of Bushwick wonderland. His latest is Xanadu Roller Arts: “This is a spaceship that landed from outer space.... You enter here, and it’s got a just funkier gravitational pull.” On Instagram, he calls it “an intergalactic cruise ship.”

Xanadu is a 16,000-square-foot roller disco that doubles as a concert venue and nightclub with a capacity of 1,000. It’s also home to what will surely become known as New York’s most mind-altering concessions stand. At every turn, there’s a standout design detail — down to a VIP club zone built out in one of the bathrooms. In essence, it is both nothing and a lot like the roller disco rinks Kataria remembers growing up in the Midwest. He wouldn’t have it any other way. “It’s a big, wild swing that there isn’t really a model for,” he says.

Xanadu Roller Arts opens on June 28 at 262 Starr Street, near Wyckoff Avenue — just down the street from Kataria’s other multi-level sensorial experience, Turk’s Inn, the restaurant he opened in 2019. That spot opened after buying all the interior design elements of a Wisconsin supper club of the same name, transporting it to Brooklyn, and recreating it meticulously, down to the last tassel. Much like Xanadu is much more than a place to roller skate, Turk’s Inn was never just a restaurant. There is an attached döner kebab shop, and its music venue, the Sultan Room, has become known for being an intimate place to go to concerts and parties like Disco Tehran, with a rooftop bar for cooling off.

Josh White, the chef at Turk’s Inn, oversees the menu at Xanadu. “You don’t want to make it pretentious; you have to give people the things they associate with roller rinks, but also making it something your own,” says Kataria. Some items are prepped down the street at Turk’s and shuttled over.

“It’s sort of melding space and bending the future in the past and the East in the West,” says Kataria. “What does that look and taste like?’

At the center of the menu, there’s an international smattering of hot dogs. They come topped with ingredients like mushroom chile crisp, an Indian pickle relish, and potato salad. There’s even one with a pierogi. Döner crumbles, from Kataria’s spot down the street, are also an option. A hot dog flight will also be available.

Much like the rest of the venue, the menu feels at once incredibly wholesome and a bit naughty. Think gussied-up concession classics, with touchstones in old-school hippie food, and whatever free associations Kataria’s brain comes up with, such as garam masala-dusted popcorn (What he describes as a “heavenly combo”), nutritional-yeast-covered salad (made purple “for Prince”), tuna tartare Frito pies. For dessert, there are baggies of by-the-pound candy from Economy Candy and a play on the ambrosia salad with Oreos.

At one point in his life, Kataria worked at a “hippie juice bar” and as an homage, they intend to have “health tonics and juices”: fresh-pressed juices like celery, and shots of aloe and coconut water for anyone looking for a hydrating pick-me-up, particularly for those who may not be drinking — something that Kataria wanted to be especially attuned to: You certainly don’t have to be imbibing to feel the full psychedelic effects of the space. “Skating doesn’t need [heavy drinking]: Your endorphins and swagger are coming from a different place here.”

But there are cocktails as well, developed by Turk’s Inn beverage director, Keri Smith, and served by the batch. The Skaterade, a play on Gatorade with blue spirulina and aloe, is sure to fuel skaters; there’s also an Old-Fashioned made to taste like caramel corn.

By day, Xanadu will be all-ages, by night 21 + (except for Sundays, which is also all ages). The kitchen will run until midnight on weekdays, and 2 a.m. on weekends. He says he sees it as a spot for serious skaters and novices alike. Is Kataria a talented roller skater “Not yet, but I will be — in that way, I am the target market, I want people to have a new relationship with their body.” There are consent forms and waivers signed at the entrance, in case of injury.

“We were purposeful about putting the phrase Roller Arts in our name, and that’s because that’s what it is: It is an art form more than a sport,” he says.

There’s been something in the zeitgeist that has people like Kataria eager to learn to roller skate. All Night Skate, a Bed-Stuy bar opened in 2021, with a roller disco theme (there’s no rink, despite some confusion from customers); recently, they were shortlisted as finalists for the James Beard Awards. Meanwhile, BjornQorn, a popcorn company, purchased Skate Time 209 in Accord, New York, saving the local roller disco, while gaining 8,000 square feet of production space, Curbed reported. There has also been a documentary in the past few years called United Skates.

Whatever the reason, the moment is right. Kataria called his neighbor who owned a warehouse space for restaurant supplies that he used for the Turk’s Inn kitchen and found out he was retiring. Within a matter of weeks, he signed on to what’s now the Xanadu Roller Arts space. And then, like many residents of Bushwick, he took a trip to Burning Man to muddle things over — it turns out the desert festival, is, incidentally, a great place to line up potential investors.