Dinner at Checkers in Brooklyn

111 Court St @ Schermerhorn St

After reading about a Checkers being under construction in Downtown Brooklyn, I did a bit of research and the picture painted was that it's essentially the Aldi (discount grocery) of fast food joints. Checkers calls itself "nation's largest chain of double drive-thru restaurants," a claim which has too many adjectives to be "the largest" of anything.

The "dual drive-thru" concept is so much of Checkers' image, and gave me a hard time guessing how an urban (non-drive-thru) location of theirs would operate.

Brooklyn's first and only Checkers is located on Court Street Downtown, right across the United Artist Cinemas. It's a rather good location to run a late night spot indeed (late-night moviegoers). Much of the rest of this area is dead at night and even on the weekends. In fact, there are a string of fast food joints just two blocks up the street which cater entirely to the office crowd and close at the end of the business day.

Unlike Checkers' drive-thru locations (which probably make up 95%+ of its properties), this location has a good amount of seating, with three booths and bar-style seating along its right wall. It even has a patio in the back with three round tables.

Checkers' menu is huge. They have about every kind of unhealthy-but-tasty food option you can imagine. Burgers, chicken sandwiches, chicken strips, fish sandwiches, hot dogs, and gooey deserts. In fact, Checkers doesn't have a single healthy (or even healthy-looking) option! My previous Aldi reference also refers to, beyond the simple interior, the large menu of $1 to $2 items, listed separately on the menu.

I went with a combo consisting of the Bacon Champ Burger (630 cal), could have done much worse!), medium seasoned fries (420 cal), and a "medium" (32oz) diet coke (1 cal). All this cost me about $8. It was 9pm and only my second meal of the day after a low-calorie breakfast, so I had no regrets! I was given a receipt with a number and my order was ready in about four minutes.

The burger was delicious and had slightly less manufactured taste than I had expected. The fries (always served seasoned) were crispy and especially enjoyable.

The staff was extremely friendly (granted, it was their first week!) and they were keeping the restaurant extremely clean (tables were wiped twice during my 15-minute stay).

All-in-all, Checkers offers a great alternative to the mega-chains and is a great addition to this corner of Downtown Brooklyn, especially with its rare-for-the-chain seating and patio.

For some good quality photos of this Checkers inside and out, have a look at this entry in the Brooklyn Heights Blog.