There is really no best way to begin this extremely trippy food story so here is how this basically went down: First, we have Andy Nguyen, the restauranteur behind Afters Ice Cream, which you might have visited over in East Long Beach, as well as a ton of other conceptual spaces like the Hello Kitty Cafe, Matte Black Coffee, Pig Pen Delicacy, Dough & Arrow…
Then, you have the Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 digital drawings of apes sold as NFTs, where owning one has become a sort of badge of honor among the wealthy. (Paris Hilton and Jimmy Kimmel compared theirs when she was being interviewed on his late night show, for example.)
Nguyen bought Ape Number 6184 for $267,000 (and two more “Mutant Apes” at a cheaper cost, which you can view in the photos below) that now gives him intellectual ownership rights that are granted to the owners of any specific NFT.
With it, he is creating Bored & Hungry, a popup restaurant which uses the three images he owns as branding for the food and plays of his Trill Smashburgers brand that he is developing in Houston.
Nguyen wants to prove how NFTs can transfer into real products and thus, real world money—not just cryptocurrency and that NFTs are more than “just a jpeg.”
“The reason I did this was to make a statement to the public, letting them know that this jpeg could be utilized to turn into a brand and eco system for the restaurant world,” he told Restaurant News yesterday.
According to his interview, Bored & Hungry is a “bit of an experiment,” with Nguyen planning to “develop other cryptocurrency-related aspects to appeal to the growing audience of people interested in the rise of Web3. He’s hoping to have a Bitcoin ATM machine in the restaurant, for example, and he’s looking into ways to take cryptocurrency as payment.”
The popup, opening April 9, will take over the former Louisiana Asian Kitchen spot at the northeast corner of 7th Street and Junipero Avenue.
