  We study hard-core bosons on the checkerboard lattice with nearest neighbour
unfrustrated hopping $t$ and `tetrahedral' plaquette charging energy $U$.
Analytical arguments and Quantum Monte Carlo simulations lead us to the
conclusion that the system undergoes a zero temperature ($T$) quantum phase
transition from a superfluid phase at small $U/t$ to a large $U/t$ Mott
insulator phase with $\rho$ = 1/4 for a range of values of the chemical
potential $\mu$. Further, the quarter-filled insulator breaks lattice
translation symmetry in a characteristic four-fold ordering pattern, and
occupies a lobe of finite extent in the $\mu$-$U/t$ phase diagram. A Quantum
Monte-Carlo study slightly away from the tip of the lobe provides evidence for
a direct weakly first-order superfluid-insulator transition away from the tip
of the lobe. While analytical arguments leads us to conclude that the
transition {\em at} the tip of the lobe belongs to a different landau-forbidden
second-order universality class, an extrapolation of our numerical results
suggests that the size of the first-order jump does not go to zero even at the
tip of the lobe.
