Jenzia Burgos

This sprawling 16,000-square-foot space, designed to double as a concert venue and nightclub for up to 1,200 people, is the city’s first new wooden rink in over a decade. Founded by Varun Kataria, a local business owner who’s already made his mark on the neighborhood with the Turk’s Inn and the Sultan Room just down the block, Xanadu is decorated with a giant black-and-white photo of a group of young Black skaters taken over 40 years ago at Empire, a model for the energy in the room today. There’s also a rinkside bar, serving drinks with names like Skaterade and Purple Rain with direct sightlines of all the action on the wood. And in the bathroom, a surprise DJ spins a soundtrack for patrons to dance to as they wash their hands, a cheeky setup Kataria calls, “Club Flush.” Read more about it here.

On a balmy June evening in Bushwick, I laced up my skates and joined a sea of bodies gliding across the maple wood floor at Brooklyn’s newest skating rink, Xanadu Roller Arts. The sprawling 16,000-square-foot space, designed to double as a concert venue and nightclub for up to 1,200 people, would officially open its doors the next day. But tonight, at this pre-opening party, seasoned pros and wobbly newcomers alike were already falling into orbit around Xanadu’s disco ball—all of us glistening from sweat and sequins as we christened what is now the city’s first new wooden rink in over a decade. This same dance would repeat night after night in the coming days, like a ritual. Yet the journey to get here was anything but routine. Xanadu was founded by Varun Kataria, a local business owner who’s already made his mark on the neighborhood with the Turk’s Inn and the Sultan Room just down the block. While he’s no stranger to Bushwick nightlife, Kataria didn’t even know how to skate when the idea of opening a roller rink occurred to him in late 2022. “I came in as an outsider,” he admits to me somewhat sheepishly as we walked the space days earlier. Kataria has since secured his own set of eights, and now speaks about skating with the same feverish devotion as the regulars. But at first, all he had to show for his passion was a quick sketch of the rink’s layout on a legal pad that he still has in his possession today. As luck would have it, his neighbor—who ran a steel fabrication s