Fans of Fire-Damaged Restaurant Reverie Auction NFTs to Help

Since the Reverie suffered severe burns earlier this month, many people have been raising money for the Michelin-starred restaurant. Now they can help by buying NFTs.

The non-fungible tokens are now available on OpenSea as part of the “Revive Reverie Collection,” which will direct all proceeds to the Georgetown restaurant’s GoFundMe. The auction-style sale started on Friday at 11am and will run for a week until it closes next Friday 2. September at 12.00.

Above: A preview of some of the Revive Reverie NFTs. Photos courtesy of Byte Club/The Blue Alligator Group.

Each NFT features a cartoon character with a food item bouncing around its head – a burger, an oyster or a lamb dish – and each chef with utensils and excellent restaurant accessories adorning the avatar. They’re GIFs, but they’re on the blockchain – meaning they’re both unique and verifiably unique.

The foods that bounce around in the characters’ astronaut helmets are actually real photos of dishes that Andrew Noh took on Reverie. Noh is an engineer and food photographer who works with blockchain technologies. After he takes the pictures, his fiancee, Yvonne Le, draws the characters and animates them.

The NFTs are sold by Byte Club, the name of the collective Noh began mixing his professional experience in technology with his passion for food. “With Byte Club, we’re kind of trying to create a foodie network of people,” says Noh.

Ruben Garcia, formerly of ThinkFoodGroup, Jhonatan Cano of Jont and Bresca, and John Snyder and Kiran Saund of The Setting, are “ambassadors” of Byte Club. They each have their own NFTs with characteristics of their restaurants. Byte Club is a subset of the Blue Alligator Group, a community of mostly anonymous creators who Noh says develop NFTs as passion projects.

To place a bid, you must first purchase the cryptocurrency Ethereum on one of the various marketplaces that trade the unregulated securities. One Ethereum costs around $1,689.57 USD at the time of publication. (Like other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum has lost a lot of value this year—it’s down more than 56 percent, according to CoinDesk.) With each Revive Reverie NFT priced at 0.15 Ethereum, each of the ten pieces starts at roughly $252 USD for auction. The NFT fundraiser can raise a minimum of $2,520 USD if they all sell at the opening price.

Reverie owner and chef Johnny Spero is not involved in the Revive Reverie NFT fundraiser, but says he’s grateful for the support. “I am honored and humbled to see the DC community come together to support Reverie. We have put so much into this restaurant and are so grateful for the support, especially as we are in the process of rebuilding,” Spero writes in an email. “From Ruben’s GoFundMe, to Bresca, Lutece and Queen’s English, the Catbird Seat in Nashville, and the Byte Club’s NFT fundraiser, everything really helps and will go directly to our staff.”