
With no substantial solutions on how this scheme will save the hospitality industry, all of this demands answers before anyone buys in. Also, where will the rest of the 99 percent of the money go? Taco member cards that get you buy-one, get-one deals around town.Īs for how exactly this is going to save the restaurant industry, there are zero answers in the initial press release, though Nguyen and Seo make you feel good about the whole thing by saying one percent of revenue from these NFTs will be donated to food sustainability and world hunger charities Abound Food Care and Action Against Hunger, which doesn’t really fix anything about the restaurant industry. NFT owners also get free food rewards, like a fancy version of those KCRW or L.A. Where and when these hidden eateries pop up will be determined and discussed on Discord.

The FFU NFT will give members exclusive access to an annual food festival, as well as semi-secret restaurants it’s calling Easter Eggs. Members will be part of the “world’s first NFT-backed restaurant group” (a dubious and nebulous claim) that will build real life gathering places and also digital things in the metaverse. Nguyen and Kevin Seo, who founded a Bored Ape-themed restaurant called Bored & Hungry, set to open later this month in Long Beach, are calling this new venture Food Fighters Universe (FFU, and no relation to the Dave Grohl-led rock band), a collection of 10,000 NFTs that will be minted in the Ethereum blockchain. FFU is definitely not the kind of NFT restaurants are opening in New York City, which are essentially closer to members-only establishments. This can allow visual artists - or any kind of creator - continue to monetize their work after the initial sale. They can also function like “smart contracts” that come with terms and conditions that could, for instance - in one of the more easily explicable uses of NFTs - allow creators to collect royalties on a piece of work each time it’s bought and traded. No matter: Afters Ice Cream founder Andy Nguyen thinks that they can fix structural problems in the food and beverage sectors, like high costs and staffing issues - which he claims will help “save the restaurant industry.” It’s also completely unclear how this will happen.įor a quick primer on NFTs, think of them like digital trading cards that can, among other things, confirm ownership of an object (including a digital one). Most people still don’t know what NFTs, or non-fungible tokens are.
