Neighborhood News: It's Not a Chess Club. It's Club Chess.

The game of kings has become an unlikely downtown craze.

- Bindu Bansinath

ONE WEDNESDAY NIGHT in the dead of August, some 300 zillennials file into Manero’s in Little Italy to hit up the open bar for dirty martinis before heading to the chessboards out back. As Celtic music blares over the sound system, the players pair off and get down to business at the latest installment of a weekly gathering where chess aficionados play, drink, and occasionally dance. “This is what everyone fantasizes about in New York,” says Reggie James, 28, a regular. “You gotta find your little Seinfeld diner.”