Bounce, rock, skate, roll: With Xanadu, Brooklyn gets a splashy new rink

By Brett Wachtel

There’s a new spot in Bushwick that will have you feeling like you are the main character in a movie, or a planet orbiting in the cosmos, or both. It’s called Xanadu.

Xanadu is Bushwick’s newest hotspot and, for those who haven’t seen the 1980 cult classic of the same name, it might not be what you’d expect. It’s actually less a nightclub, and more of “an intergalactic cruise ship,” according to its owner, Varun Kataria. Xanadu is the only one-stop shop roller rink, community center, music venue, restaurant, bar and nightclub in the five boroughs. Kataria says its location at 262 Starr Street made him feel like “life is a simulation,” serendipitously on the same street as the groovy Sultan Room and Turk’s Inn combo, which he also owns.

Photo by Kenny Rodriguez

‘Less friction, more flow’
Looking around Xanadu, you’ll find that smooth edges and rounded corners are abundant in its design. Kataria’s carefully curated and designed nightclub has embraced a “less friction, more flow” ethos, manifested by taking “every opportunity to eliminate a right angle.” Everything from the ceiling to the carpet design is rounded out to keep the flow moving, removing the “stagnated energy” of right angles and hard corners.

When you’re off the rink floor, you can enjoy the many booths surrounding it. The layout of the seating at Xanadu was designed to “eliminate privacy” where each area acts as a “conversation pit” to enhance the “communal experience” of the room. Kataria says that it brings him “so much joy” to see “queer, nightlife kids from Bushwick” sharing space in a room and becoming friends with “older, 30-40 year roller skaters” from the R&B/disco community.

After getting his sea legs in hospitality and nightlife before, and through, the pandemic, Kataria says he wants to bring “new meaning” to nightlife and build a diverse community by putting roller skating back on the map.

Of course, roller skating never really left. In fact, there’s been a major uptick in skate culture, though roller rinks themselves have been “stuck in yesterday,” Kataria says. “There have been more roller skaters minted since the pandemic,” and according to skate manufacturers like Rollerblade, they’ve had the “best years of selling skates post-pandemic” reporting a more than 300 percent increase in sales at the beginning of the pandemic.

David Jones, who has been coming to Xanadu from Fort Greene, says he hasn’t stopped skating for “60 years.” The 72-year-old says his favorite part about skating is that it keeps him healthy and that, when you’re skating, you don’t think about anything else. “When you come in the rink, whatever’s weighing you down, it’s out there.”

Photo by Kenny Rodriguez

‘Spread love the Brooklyn way’
With the opening of Xanadu on June 28, Brooklyn’s skate community finally has somewhere to go since the legendary Crown Heights roller rink Empire Roller Skating Center closed in 2007. Tanya Dean, founder of Skaterobics, a New York community roller skating organization, feels “amazing” at Xanadu. “Love is roller skating’s message” and Xanadu is “something that we wanted for a long time.” She’s excited about Xanadu’s impact on the community as an outlet “to just have fun” because “fun has no color” and roller skating “bring worlds together.”

Bringing worlds together is exactly what Kataria aims to do with Xanadu, regardless of New Yorkers’ “inherent suspicion” of a new business actually having good intentions. He talks about the cynicism Xanadu has had to overcome in its development, but says it has a “heart that is beating with the force of human connection and joy,” and is determined to prove that Xanadu is a “service to the community.” One of the ways in which he plans to do that is by having “community skate nights” on Wednesdays to provide “an affordable point of entry” at $18.54 for everyone that wants to skate because after all, he says, “it’s our job to teach you how to skate.”

Photo by Kenny Rodriguez

Xanadu Roller Arts open Wednesdays and Thursdays 6 p.m. to midnight; Fridays from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. and Saturdays from noon to 2 a.m. 262 Starr Street in Bushwick.