Brooklyn Mac and Cheese Takedown Returned to Royal Palms in Gowanus, NYC

On October 18, from 1 to 3pm, Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club in Gowanus hosted the Brooklyn Mac and Cheese Takedown 2026, a competition in which local home cooks brought their best mac and cheese and attendees tasted, compared and voted.

The event belongs to The Takedowns, a series run by Matt Timms. The organizer's site lists a year of themed contests, including chili, tacos, garlic and ice cream, and the mac and cheese edition was the autumn entry. A 2019 Brooklyn Paper story described the mac and cheese contest as then in its 15th year, with a single rule: there are no rules. Timms recalled that one past entrant even made mac-and-cheese ice cream.

A $30 ticket got each guest a ballot and all-you-can-eat access to the entries. Home cooks who wanted to compete signed up by emailing the organizer. Two prizes were on offer, People's Choice and Judge's, and the first-place winner in each category took home a $600 gift certificate to Scarpetta, the New York restaurant group. Bravo Bar Party, Scarpetta and Xanadu appeared as prize sponsors on the event page.

Royal Palms is a shuffleboard club and the regular home of the series. The poster for this edition used a psychedelic, 1960s-style design, with a face in orange sunglasses set against a pattern of yellow macaroni, and billed the day as a food competition with all the mac you can eat and a vote for the winner.

The organizer lists upcoming Takedowns at thetakedowns.com.