TEMPO: A Turtle Named Ja Rule is This Brooklyn Bar’s Michael Schumacher

TEMPO: A Turtle Named Ja Rule is This Brooklyn Bar’s Michael Schumacher

Turtles All The Way Down is likely the only bar in the U.S. where you can get shit-faced and blow your rent on the turtle racing racket. Don’t quote me on that though.

Akram Shah

“This bar lets you bet on turtles named Ja Rule and Vita while sipping frozen Irish coffee in a Greek diner cup under a disco ball.” There are only some sentences that make sense in New York, and this is one of them.

Tucked in a sleepy corner of Bed-Stuy is Turtles All The Way Down. The world’s best (No, I’m not debating this) reptile-adjacent gambling den. Once a month, the crowd packs in shoulder to shoulder for what might be Brooklyn’s slowest bloodsport: turtle racing on a shuffleboard table. The stakes are low. The drinks are strong. The energy sits somewhere between bingo night and a Boiler Room set.

Credit: instagram.com/turtlesallthewaydownbk

At the center is Ja Rule, the turtle not the man, a red-eared slider with more track presence than your average NYC Marathon runner. The races are hosted by the self-appointed “turtle mommy” who yells like a promoter and officiates like it’s the Indy 500. Winners get drinks. Losers get louder. Everyone gets a little too invested.

Sure, it’s kitsch. But it’s alive. This is where nightlife, absurdity, and community all reach a boiling point. You don’t go for the cocktails, although the frozen Kahlua situation deserves its own moment. You go because there’s a DJ spinning between races, a deer head wearing Christmas lights, and a room full of people screaming at a reptile to move two inches.

In a city where everything moves fast, Turtles All The Way Down shows what it means to slow down and still hold the room.

LISTED: Nick Cheo

A dorm room at Ohio State to a live set at the Apple Store in Chicago. Nick Cheo's path has been anything but linear. We caught up with the genre-blurring DJ on the fall of jorts and the permanence of Chinese takeout.