The Sultan Room

Overview

Mid-sized Bushwick performance space and rooftop opened June 2019 by Tyler Erickson and Varun Kataria above the revived Turk's Inn supper club, programming live music, DJ nights, and drag across rock, house, experimental, and global sounds.

The Sultan Room occupies a dedicated performance room and rooftop at 234 Starr Street, Bushwick, part of a three-concept complex co-owners Tyler Erickson and Varun Kataria built around the relocated Turk's Inn supper club. The original Turk's Inn was founded in 1934 by George and Isabella Gogian in Hayward, Wisconsin; when the founders' daughter Beatrice 'Marge' Gogian died in 2015, the legendary roadhouse shuttered. Erickson and Kataria, longtime patrons who had grown up working in Erickson's family Minneapolis jazz club (which hosted Prince, among others), purchased the Wisconsin venue's contents at auction, moved them to Bushwick, and opened Turk's Inn, The Sultan Room, and the adjacent Döner Kebab kiosk in late June 2019. The Sultan Room sign was salvaged from the original Wisconsin space, and the name came with it. The Sultan Room itself sits behind the restaurant, accessed through a brass-adorned door. The interior runs on a '70s-glam register: black leather banquettes, a sunken gold dance floor, technicolored lighting, wall decals drawn from mosque geometry, and black-and-gold glitter bathrooms fitted with audio clips about the Wisconsin original. Standing capacity is approximately 201; the low stage extends into the audience to encourage an intimate listening-room feel. A separately ticketed rooftop deck (the Kismet Garden) adds outdoor capacity and hosts its own programming. Music programmer Bruce Easley, who described the room as a 'mature playground' evoking a 'time warp,' shaped the opening season's DJ bookings alongside talent buyer James Buckley, who joined to develop the live-music arm. Programming crossed genre lines from the outset. The opening-summer DJ roster included Tim Sweeney (Beats in Space), Justin Cudmore, Eli Escobar, Lauren Flax, Vin Sol, Jubilee, Rich Medina, and Riobamba alongside live acts from indie rock, jazz, and hip-hop. Co-owner Kataria framed the model as 'nightlife for consistency, live music for the element of surprise.' The venue's closeness to the Jefferson L-train corridor (two blocks from House of Yes and within walking distance of Elsewhere and Jupiter Disco) made it a regular stop on the post-2017 Cabaret Law-repeal wave of Brooklyn dance spaces. COVID forced the room dark through most of 2020; when it reopened in April 2021 it launched two new outdoor series: 'Sultan Room Under the Stars' (seated, masked concert performances on the Kismet Garden rooftop) and 'Sultan Sundays' (3–9 p.m. day parties with rotating local DJs). Horrorchata, co-founder of the Bushwig drag festival, hosted the in-house drag residency 'Gigs' on the post-COVID calendar, extending the venue's reach into the Brooklyn queer-performance community.

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