AlwaysInformed: Shangri-La Seating at Checkers (Brooklyn)

Josh Kaplan — July 22, 2009

Shangri-La seating at Checkers’ Court Street location

The burgeoning Checkers (view site) invasion spreading through the city (Bronx, Staten Island and Brooklyn) is scheduled to continue today in Manhattan with a one o’clock opening this afternoon of a Downtown location at 77 Chambers Street. It’s almost enough to make us forget the recently opened branch in the awkward railroad space on Court Street in Brooklyn. Love it or hate it, Checkers has been so packed on several visits that even getting inside is tricky. Since the opening more than a month ago, a craving for the signature Cajun Fries often can’t be satisfied without waiting on a line the length of the one for Disney’s Space Mountain. The cramped indoor space makes for a grim seating scenario.

 

There are three narrow booths to the left and ten stools lining a narrow counter to the right. Customers on either side are forced to fight for space against the crush of a noisy, irritable line four to five customers-wide knifing through the restaurant’s center.

 

Inconceivably, salvation from the buzz of a heavily-populated commercial block in downtown Brooklyn can be found to the right of the counter at the back where customers place their orders. A narrow, snaking corridor empties into an utterly vacant, lovely, walled-in back patio complete with shaded picnic tables. It makes for the perfect setting to enjoy a mediocre burger and awesome fries in peace.