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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Flyfish Club

With a Summer Opening In Sight, Flyfish Club Now Letting New Members Join in the Old-School Non-NFT Way

Remember Flyfish Club, the Gary Vaynerchuck-affiliated dining club that made news when it announced it was planning to build the world’s first NFT restaurant?

While you may not, the restaurant industry sure does. After the group raised an impressive $14 million in just weeks by selling tiered memberships via NFT, it seemed everyone started wondering, ‘Could it really be this easy?’ (Editor spoiler: For others, it was not that easy. Copycats proliferated, but none matched the success of Flyfish).

Since the group’s launch over two years ago, Flyfish has been mostly quiet, holding the occasional get-together and trickling out updates. Because of this relative quiet, members were naturally excited last week when Flyfish teased on its Discord that an announcement would be coming on April 5th. And, as it turns out, it was a pretty big announcement.

The group showed off what Gary Vaynerchuk described as a first look at the restaurant, calling the images photos even though some of the images—including the sushi chef—were clearly computer renderings. The renderings looked a lot like almost every Vegas restaurant or lounge I’ve ever been in.

More importantly, though, the announcement provided many more details about membership specifics, some of which the early members found frustrating.

One of those details, which can be seen in this Q&A PDF, is the group has made a fairly significant shift in its approach by letting folks purchase memberships in an old-school, non-Blockchain way. According to Flyfish, prospective members can purchase memberships by paying a one-time entrance fee of $1,500 (no crypto needed) and an annual membership fee of $3,500 ($4,000 if you want membership for yourself and a partner).

Another detail that caused some to bristle was the annual membership fee of $500 for “Blockchain” members (meaning members who entered through buying an NFT). As one Twitter user complained, “The mint was ~$8k in eth at the time, +2yrs of waiting and now we have to pay $500/year to get comp’d $500 in expensive food/drinks. Should be 2-3x that per year to make early backers feel whole.”

My guess is the group decided to become more flexible with membership options because the cost of constructing and operating a restaurant in New York City, as well as paying operating salaries to what is essentially a startup in the Flyfish Club team, is incredibly expensive. It’s also a recognition that while NFT membership is a cool idea that no doubt appeals to the Gary V community, most high-rollers in NYC who usually would pay for a dining club are probably not big NFT enthusiasts. While this will undoubtedly take some of the shine of exclusivity that appealed to the crypto in-crowd when it was first announced, I’m guessing that keeping the restaurant solvent is probably a good long-term thing.

Not all the new details were bummers. One new benefit Flyfish announced is partners are now included. While initially, the blockchain memberships meant only the holder was a member, now they say spouses or partners are also included as members. The group also detailed how membership gave members priority reservation access to other VCR Group (the holding group for Flyfish Club) restaurants.

Of course, none of this actually includes food if you are a non-Blockchain member. After these members pay their dues, no food is included. In other words, it’s pretty much the same as every other dining or country club. It’s mostly the same for blockchain members, though Flyfish will apply their $500 membership as a credit towards meals purchased at the club. Beyond that, though, they’re paying for every meal.

We’ll be in NYC this summer, so hopefully, we’ll be able to get a sneak peek. If one of our readers gets a chance to visit the Flyfish Club, drop us a line (with actual photos) and let us know what you think.

Restaurant Tech News Pod: Web3 Restaurants, Sweetgreen Robots, Subway Smart Fridge

Last week I caught up with Expedite’s Kristen Hawley to talk about some of the recent happenings in the world of restaurant tech.

Some of the stories we talked about on this episode include:

And more! You can listen to the podcast below or find it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here Are The Details About Flyfish Club, Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT Restaurant Opening in 2023

While we already knew some of the basic details about Gary Vaynerchuk and VCR Group’s NFT restaurant concept, we’ve learned more in the last week about how the whole thing will work.

Here’s some of what we’ve learned and my quick thoughts:

Token as Membership. At a high level, the Flyfish Club and its NFT membership is essentially a new, crypto-ized spin on an old idea: a member’s only dining club. To start, VCR initially made a total of 1,501 membership tokens for the Flyfish Club available to the public and reserved 1,534 for the company. Membership remains valid as long as a person owns the token. As just like most NFTs, the owner can resell the token (and many are already trying to do just that) on marketplaces like Opensea.

Flyfish Has Two-Tiered Membership. Flyfish has two types of tokens available: a Flyfish token and a Flyfish Omakase token. The Flyfish token, initially offered at 2.5 Ethereum (~$8,400), gets you into the restaurant and cocktail lounge while the Omakase token, offered at 4.25 Ethereum (~$14,300), gets you all that plus entry into the exclusive Omakase room.

Frequency and Guests: A token owner can eat at Flyfish pretty much whenever they want, but they’ll have to make a reservation first. Token owners will need to call ahead up to 14 days in advance for a table. Each token holder can make as many reservations as they’d like (capacity willing) per month, and each token member can bring the number of guests allotted for a specific table (for example, if they reserve a four-person table, they can bring three guests).

Flyfish Token Owners Still Have to Pay for Food. So you just spent $14 thousand on your new membership? That’s great and all, but you better have some left over to pay the bill. As with a traditional exclusive dining club, membership fees to Flyfish are just that, the cost of entry. Food, payable in US dollars, will be purchased for each meal just as if you were at any other restaurant.

Flyfish Has Raised $14 Million in Funds So Far. That’s right, $14 million in about a week. This is impressive and signals a potentially game-changing way to start a restaurant. Of course, there can only be one ‘first’ and not everyone has millions of followers like Gary Vaynerchuk. Still, I can certainly see a lot of celebrity chefs jumping into NFT-driven membership restaurants in the next couple of years.

The Tokens are Leasable. This is an interesting (and smart) twist: Flyfish permits token owners to lease them to others on a monthly basis. Leasing essentially turns a semi-liquid asset with a limited ability for near-term recurring revenue into a potential cash cow. Say, for example, you buy a Flyfish token for $4 thousand and lease it out to executives or curious upscale foodies for $1,000 a month. This would allow you to essentially treat a token as say you would a home you purchase to put onto Airbnb: An investment with potential for both long-term appreciation potential and near-term short-term recurring revenue.

There are a lot more details on the club’s FAQ page, which I would recommend reading. Overall, I think Gary Vee and crew have created a fairly common-sense initial framework for an NFT-as-membership concept that will undoubtedly become a template for others (of which I expect will be many).

If you’d like to learn more about how NFTs will chance the restaurant and food business, make sure to join The Spoon’s Food NFT/Metaverse mini-summit on February 1st. Registration is free (but limited), so hurry up and register today!