The World's First Bored Ape Yacht Club-Branded Restaurant 'Bored & Hungry' Announced

Cryptocurrency is at a point where it has enough public awareness to fuel an overheated market for NFTs and anything crypto-adjacent. Brands are jumping in to cash in on that hype. Since the technology is relatively new, it remains a largely unregulated space also teeming with scammers cashing in on consumers wanting to jump on the next coin headed to the moon.

NFT-based projects are seen mainly as little more than a collection of images and promises, and so far, that is often true. But Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) holder and restaurateur Andy Nguyen wants to prove that his expensive Jpegs are about more than flexing online and hanging out with other crypto bros.

Bored & Hungry is a pop-up hamburger restaurant Nguyen sets to open next month in Long Beach, Ca. Branding, including packaging and employee uniforms, will feature the ape characters owned by the entrepreneur. Andy Ngyuen’s other projects include Matte Black Coffee, Afters Ice Cream, Portside Fish Co., Dough & Arrow, Happy Hours Group, Banh Xeo Boys, and Thrill Burgers.

“The intention of this project is to give to the Web3 community, as well as a place to educate those skeptical about this new world,” Nguyen said in an Instagram post. “Our goal and purpose are to bridge the digital world with real-life experience. Doing something that's familiar and at the same time different.”

“They like to call it a ‘jpeg,’ but we wanted to show them that we're building a new ecosystem. A brand/business with the intellectual property that we are granted owning these NFTs,” Nguyen added.

Ngyuen says that the Bored & Hungry will also feature special perks for community members and collaborations with other NFT projects. Of course, restaurants using popular IP to sell burgers is not a Web3 innovation, nor is giving your friends discounts and VIP treatment at your place. Perhaps the use of expensive jpegs, which may or may not be Nazi-inspired, to join a club is the novelty of this new ecosystem.

Anyone clamoring to feed the BAYC hype while having a burger can find Bored & Hungry on Junipero and 7th (where the Popeye’s used to be) in Long Beach, California, starting April 4th.