I shoot my recurve off the shelf. It's a forged-aluminium-riser, so it's cut-out like a regular compound. I filled in the riser with a piece of rosewood (won't rot or swell with moisture), so it's square. Shoots great.
I then put a piece of hair-faced padding on top of the shelf to hold the arrow up a little so when I shoot my hunting arrows off of it, I'll have a little clearance for the feather. You can see it needs to be replaced, but it still works great.