American impresario Varun Kataria, whose Xanadu Roller Arts skating rink debuted this summer in Bushwick, Brooklyn, argues: 'You need to have taste to create kitsch.' The venue's name alone betrays an obvious debt of inspiration to that loopy 1980 disco movie musical Xanadu, starring the late Olivia Newton-John. But painted pink walls, LED mood lighting and the glass-block circular windows are all right out of a Tarantino film. Plastic laminate and a galaxy of Milky Way star-printed casino broadloom carpet only heighten the winking Americana.
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Kataria is a design daredevil who cites European postmodernist architecture masters like Ettore Sottsass and Verner Panton as role models – though he claims never to have intended for the place to be judged purely as interior design. In fact, he calls himself an artist who lacks formal design training and never 'really claims expertise in any field'.
Newly arrived in low-rise, industrial Bushwick, following law school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he opened twin venues along Starr Street, with partners. The Turk’s Inn restaurant boasts thrillingly tacky decor that they rescued (in plastic garbage bags) from the auction of a dilapidated roadside supper club in the Wisconsin woods. Meanwhile, their adjacent Bushwick lounge is known as The Sultan Room. 'I had David Byrne emailing me for dinner reservations, and Alicia Keys played our venue,' prior to the Coronavirus shutdown, Kataria says.
When business temporarily shuttered during the pandemic – and while battling malaise at home – he vowed to leverage his core strength in music culture and double-down on the neighbourhood’s growing reputation for nightlife. 'Bushwick or bust,' he recalls saying. In fact, Xanadu sits just 40 seconds down the street, in a building that was formerly a sheet metal manufacturing workshop that supplied The Turk’s steel kitchen shelving.
The new maple-floored skating rink, with its intergalactic decor, can itself host gatherings of 500 on wheels. 'Everybody loves to skate; it’s intergenerational,' Kataria says, noting how some will bring 'skill and artistry at an almost Olympic level'. A hired pair of pole dancers recently took to the stage while wearing skates – though Kataria insists the performance stayed tame enough that no one hid their eyes.
The stage apron unfolds to expand the platform for live band performances. And once all the skates are put safely back into the closet, typically after 10pm, the rink becomes a dedicated dance floor. It’s Saturday Night Fever every day of the week.
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