Long Beach’s NFT-themed restaurant still accepts crypto for now

The “crypto winter” may be rolling in, but the founders of NFT restaurant group Food Fighters Universe are staring the storm in the face, boldly claiming that now is indeed the time to double down on digital assets.

Billing itself as the first NFT-themed restaurant group, Food Fighters Universe was started just four months ago by co-founders Andy Nguyen, COO Phillip Huynh and “Chief Megaphone” Kevin Seo.

Long Beach’s Bored & Hungry restaurant still accepts crypto, despite a recent Los Angeles Times article in which a reporter described visiting the site and said staff did not accept Ethereum or ApeCoin, the cryptocurrency associated with the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Nguyen and Seo told dot.LA that the reporter happened to visit the store when their systems were temporarily shut down for maintenance, and said they still take crypto as payment.

“It was timing and miscommunication,” Seo claimed. “[The LA Times] happened to stop by when we were in NYC doing an activation with Bored & Hungry and we were accepting crypto payments in New York and there was a technical issue on the west coast that we weren’t aware of.”

“The best time to accept crypto is in a bear market, that’s when you make the most money,” said Nguyen, a restaurateur best known for his involvement in Los Angeles’ Afters Ice Cream chain.

Seo told dot.LA that the restaurant plans to accept more forms of crypto as payment in the coming months. And while the co-founders wouldn’t disclose the restaurant’s revenue, Seo noted that they had plans to open another Bored & Hungry location in Seoul, South Korea this fall; the store’s first international expansion.

It’s important to note that accepting crypto isn’t the only thing that makes Bored & Hungry a web3-adjacent business: the restaurant’s theme is based on the Bored Ape Yacht Club, the controversial NFT gathering run by Yuga Labs.

Celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon, Tom Brady and Seth Green have openly supported the monkeys, while critics (such as web designer and Azaelia Banks’ ex-boyfriend Ryder Ripps) claim that the project is rooted in racism or Nazi iconography – something Yuga Labs CEO Nicole Muniz vehemently denies.

“I think it’s just he said, she said, people dig,” Nguyen said when asked about the allegations. “[Bored Ape] is the most popular brand out there, it is what it is.”

When creating the restaurant, Nguyen had to meet the Bored Ape founders and talk to one of them (he didn’t say which one) to get their official approval, adding, “he didn’t seem crazy.”

Bored & Hungry isn’t the only food brand capitalizing on the Bored Ape hype — Bored Breakfast Club, which is not affiliated with Nguyen’s restaurant, launched an NFT coffee subscription in January.

Despite lurid accusations and impending crypto crash, the series of 1,000 cartoon anthropomorphic monkeys is possibly the most popular NFT brand out there, with sales exceeding $1 billion earlier this year. That’s why Nguyen and his team chose to buy three Bored Ape NFTs earlier this year for roughly $330,000 and themed their Long Beach burger joint.

But it’s not a stable asset, and the price floor – and the value of – Bored Ape Yacht Club’s NFTs continues to fluctuate. After reaching a peak of approximately 149 Ethereum in early May, the project is now down to 81.75 ETH. Decrypt reported in June that its collection fell 47%, falling below a floor price of $100,000 for the first time since August 2021.

Nguyen said the desire to associate with the Bored Ape brand was rooted in its widespread appeal.

– We will fight for the top 10 [most] popular coins out there,” Seo told dot.LA, while acknowledging that the percentage of people actually buying their lunch with crypto is still minuscule.

“Adoption will still take a long time,” Seo said. “We’re going to continue to push it, even if it’s used very minimally. It’s not a huge percentage of anything. Somebody wants to do it, and just having the opportunity feels good, and we hope that it will lead to more adoption.”