The new price for being a regular? An NFT
One recent Thursday night in the West Village, dozens of people gathered at Emmett’s on Grove to eat pizza and drink beer. It would have been like any other night at the popular Manhattan restaurant, but for the entrance fee: not a standard reservation, or a forty-minute wait for a walk-in seat, but an NFT, with the Hot Papi pizza anthropomorphized with fried eggs. eyes and a bacon smile.
The NFTs were the craft of the new company Front of House, which was launched in early June with the aim of becoming “the internet’s one-stop-shop for digital collectibles from the best bars and restaurants anywhere.” Currently, it offers NFTs related to special diner privileges at New York hotspots Dame and Wildair, as well as Emmett’s on Grove. Each can be purchased with cryptocurrencies, or regular old credit cards. (NFTs, in case you live under a rock, are “non-fungible tokens”, also known as unique digital cryptocurrencies that are registered on a blockchain, and which are increasingly used to access clubs, services and subscriptions members only.)
To attend the pizza party, guests had to deliver either a $ 33 NFT good for the specific event, or one of the heavier NFTs currently offered by the Front of House, such as the $ 1,000 Fish & Chips Hospitality Club collector’s item from Dame, designed by Marianna Fierro and can be redeemed for one table reservation per week until the end of 2022.
The turnout was strong, with around sixty adults, two children and an extremely airy gray dog. Revelers drank beer from tall glasses adorned with a cheeky FOH logo (sarcastic, colorful 2017-era brand for food magazines seems to be a strength of the company) and ate as many slices of pizza as they could. A bearded man walked around the room and showed off a black bag from ApeFest. At 19.00 on the dot, the party guests were politely taken out, so normal service could begin.
According to Front of House co-founder Phil Toronto, a consumer technology investor and partner at VaynerFund, the company has so far sold around 100 NFTsl, including 40 of the more expensive, single-restaurant-linked tokens. In addition to the $ 1,000 Dame Hospitality Club collector’s item, Emmett’s on Grove offers a similar token with reservation access until the end of this year for $ 300, and Wildair offers a series of Donut Friend collectibles for $ 200 per pop, providing (vaguely defined) access to their specialty donut flavors and events, plus a hint of potential perks down the line. Front of House expects the next release to be a series of NFTs from the East Village restaurant Hanoi House.
“The beauty of the opportunity is that we do not have to decide from conception what benefits are offered [with the NFT]. On an ongoing basis, we can experiment with different offers. It is the opportunity to establish a meaningful relationship with top supporters of the restaurant, says Sarah Better, Emmett’s chief of staff.
At the end of this year, participating restaurants will have the opportunity to evaluate the NFTs they have issued and either restore or change the benefits offered, as well as the opportunity to issue a new set of tokens.
Toronto says the proceeds from the sale of each collectible are shared 80 percent to the restaurant and 20 percent to the Front of House (including FOH NFTs traded on the secondary market). His primary goal with FOH is to increase the cash flow to restaurants, he says. The company plans to expand to Los Angeles and Canada next time, and wants to create NFTs that offer package deals – such as a single NFT that offers reservation benefits across five or six separate restaurants in a single neighborhood.
Danielle Vreeland, who lives in Tribeca, tells me that she first bought an Emmett’s Supper Club collector’s item for her husband as a Father’s Day gift, but decided to keep it to herself. (The NFT holder must be present at any reservation made using the token.) “I would like to see 4 Charles and Carbone make NFTs,” says Vreeland. “It would be beyond.”
