The First NFT Restaurant.
Here's what happens when you buy in to the NFT hype and wait 4 hours to get a burger.
TL;DR: A meh restaurant, shitty tech experience, but great community moment. Oh and I got quoted in LA Times by THE LUCAS KWAN PETERSON.
Hello Professionally Curious One!
You ever wonder what an NFT restaurant would be like? No?
Well, I was curious for you and went to one this month. It is incredibly rare to find In-Person Web3 Experiences, and I want to support every project that is making attempts to do so.
As always, you can find TL;DRs and graphics wherever possible!
Btw. If you want to find and sample different kinds of newsletters, I recommend signing up for “The Sample”.
In Case You Missed It
Sections You Can Skim To:
WHAT is the Restaurant Experience?
WHAT is the technology experience?
WHAT is the community experience?
WAS it worth it?
WHAT is the Restaurant experience?
TL;DR: The Restaurant part is meh.
Bored & Hungry is a pop-up smash burger restaurant headed by SoCal Restauranter Andy Nguyen. It is a partnership born between Andy, Houston rapper Bun B’s Trill Burger (smashburgers), and Beleaf Burgers (veggie burgers).
What’s impressive is that this project was a last minute project (I think), which I could guess came about in less than 90 days. The building used to be a Popeyes turned Louisana Fried Chicken turned vacant turn Burger Pop-up, and the interior was graphed in inspired art themed on the BAYC NFTs Andy Nguyen had access to.
The Food Part
I am not a food critic, or a food writer, and nor do I intend to be. But this is a restaurant after all, so here’s what I ate: I ordered one of each item on the menu, which isn’t a whole lot - which is 4 different burgers.
Meat or Vegan
Onion or No Onion
Like all other smash-burgers, the burger taste uniquely the same. The only difference is the vegan burger, which I found to be incredibly similar to Monty’s Good Burger, and I freaking love Monty’s Good Burger.
The packaging brings the BAYC brand to life. But as much as I love the packaging, it doesn’t save the food for what it is.
Like all other smash-burgers, the burger taste uniquely the same. The only difference is the vegan burger, which I found to be incredibly similar to Monty’s Good Burger, and I freaking love Monty’s Good Burger.
Vegan burgers are able to carry a smokiness without the oilyness, and combined with grilled onion, its a great bite. The fries are similar to Burger King Fries sprinkled with Pepper. I’d pass on the fries and just go for the Vegan burger.
The Service Part
The day of service for the grand-opening was definitely planned out to be an event production, filled with “VIP” treatment, security guard, and so forth. However, moving passed the event planning, you enter a restaurant that only had one point-of-sale terminal.
One.
And there were hundreds of us that day waiting. Slow sales processing was the name of the game.
Since the menu was so small and similar, they were simply dishing out meals. You would basically get your food as soon as you pay for it. I wouldn’t find this commentary to be indicative of their regular day-to-day though.
The VIP Part
Holders of BAYC and the friends of MAYC were entitled to VIP treatment.
This event was priotizing BAYC and MAYC holders with incentives. You either held those NFTs, or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, you’d be waiting in a very long line.
If you held the coveted NFTs, you got a free burger, and you were brought to the front of the line, every time.
WHAT is the Technology experience?
TL;DR: The Tech sucked.
This restaurant isn’t pushing boundaries when it comes to tech-based experiences. It’s more of a great hype project come to life, than it is a tech demo.
Bored & Hungry had these options:
Payment using Crypto
Claiming a POAP (Proof of Attendance - which they ran out.)
A Bitcoin ATM
It’s nothing special or revolutionary by any means. A distraction, if anything.
WHAT is the community experience?
TL:DR: The community experience is invaluable, and incredible.
Here’s the thing you need to know about this restaurant.
It’s not innovative.
It’s not even “great” when it comes to burgers you can get in SoCal, especially in Long Beach.
It was a giant pain to even wait and get it.
But you wanna know what’s impressive about this?
It had a community before it even started.
It already had a following before it got announced.
People already had a shared identity before they even lined up that day.
There are 5 thousand members in the Discord - a Discord I might add that Andy is active in, with AMAs leading up to the day, and after.
Using Discord, you were “hanging out” virtually, with people commenting in from around the world. But then that virtualiness crossed into the real world.
The moderator of the Food Fighter Universe Discord, whom did a great job at having the community engage, had everyone do a simple a tactic of asking everyone to simply post a photo to the discord. Above is exactly what happened happened, and it was enough to get people caught in each other’s photos to talk to each other for the rest of the time they were waiting in line.
They were strangers with a shared identity that became colleagues or friends with a shared identity.
What was also great to see is the all to often car stopping at the stoplight, rolling down the window in complete confusion, and asking what’s going on. It would be met with excitement from everyone nearby saying it was a “Crypto Burger” and “Come eat some NFTs!”
The Important Part
This restaurant is located on 7th and Junipero in Long Beach. This is a neighborhood that has small streets, high traffic, and has seen better days, but nonetheless has a charm to it. Walk over to 4th street and you’ll enter the Long Beach hipster section.
But characteristic to both Long Beach, Crypto, and the people who were in line- and this is the part I really love about projects like these, is this:
It could be anyone.
When you think of an NFT holder for BAYC or MAYC, or think of Crypto, or even think about fans of a digital-centric community identity, it can quite litertally be anyone.
It’s not some millionaire investor, or a gaggle of them, and it’s not white-collared folks only, it is quite literally - anyone who “paid attention” to NFTs and Crypto.
It could be anyone.
And make that “anyone” feel like they have a “special place to be” with a “special community” on any Saturady, well, that makes that anyone suddenly feel like they are one of the only ones.
And that’s the power of a great hype branding intersecting with NFTs.
It could be anyone.
WAS it worth it?
TL;DR: For tech reasons? Absolutely not. For Culture reasons? Hell yeah.
I waited 4 hours, in retrospect I’ll never do that again. But I did get some trophies even though I didn’t get a POAP or any other technology value.
I got a photo with James Beard awardee Lucas Kwan Peterson, who goes by the IG handle of @staletwizzlers. I know of him from when he did Dining on a Dime for Eater, specifically his work in finding the Tamale Guy in Chicago.
Anyway, Lucas writes for the LA times and I got quoted.
Hope you enjoy this one.