“This is our gift to the Web3 community but we’re also showing the naysayers like, ‘Hey, we utilized IP, we turned it into a business.’”ĭajae Williams, a musician and educator from Long Beach, said NFTs were a way for creators to keep track of their most enthusiastic supporters. “We’re building a real-life experience,” said Nguyen, who has a Bored Ape and three Mutant Apes, a different kind of NFT created by the same company, Yuga Labs. Seemingly every celebrity alive has a crypto side hustle. Chefs like Tom Colicchio and Shirley Chung have their own NFT projects. But even if we’re in a speculative bubble, this opening felt important to witness, if only because it’s clear food and cyber-culture are becoming more intertwined: Ghost kitchens, essentially virtual restaurants, now litter the restaurant landscape due to the pandemic. While Kim and family are famous for being famous, NFTs are valuable because they’re so expensive. Namely, that they’re the Kardashians of the digital world. I’ll admit to arriving to Bored & Hungry with a few preconceptions about NFTs.

Now imagine holding a “certificate of authenticity” for the original - and selling it for millions of dollars.

If you don’t know what an NFT is by now, imagine a screenshot-able jpeg. It’s the grand opening of restaurateur Andy Nguyen’s “world’s first Bored Ape-themed restaurant,” and the crown jewel of Food Fighters Universe, the “world’s first NFT-backed restaurant group.” Bored Apes are some of the most popular - and valuable - NFTs ever created.

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