First cryptocurrency-only restaurant sale launched in the United States

A Big Apple bar owner takes his bow – and bets on Bitcoin with what could be the first cryptocurrency-only restaurant sale in the United States.

This week, Patrick Hughes put his Hell’s Kitchen, Hellcat Annie’s and Scruffy Duffy side-by-side watering holes up for sale. The Price: 25 Bitcoins or 800 Ethereum tokens for both, worth around $ 875,000 by current cryptocurrency prices.

“Crypto is on fire, it’s hot currency,” said Hughes, 56, from Queens who now resides in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ, and whose family has worked in the Manhattan bar since 1970. “It’s decentralized. It’s global. “

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Fueled by ever-growing debt and fears of a devalued US dollar, Hughes is among countless investors, institutions, and ordinary Americans who see cryptocurrency as a legitimate alternative to the dollar.

NFL offensive tackle Russell Okung just had his request to be paid in Bitcoin fulfilled by the Carolina Panthers. PayPal introduced a crypto exchange late last year. And federal regulators this week began allowing banks to settle cryptocurrency transactions.

The sale of Hellcat Annie’s and Scruffy Duffy’s could mark a new chapter in crypto’s ascendancy.

“I don’t know of any other bar or restaurant that has been sold purely for crypto,” said Charles Cascarilla, CEO of Paxos Trust Company, which specializes in cryptocurrency infrastructure. “But more and more people see crypto as a monetary instrument. We are really at a critical point in its acceptance. “

Before the pandemic, Hughes employed 50 people at his two establishments. It has now fallen to “five or six,” but said it survived better than many, largely by staying closed for most of 2020.

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“I played golf, read books, worked at home and taught myself how to make cartoons,” said Hughes, who started a Scruffy Duffy YouTube channel to display his animated videos. He hopes to continue with this art form once he and his wife, with whom he has three children, move south if the bars sell out.

He reopened Hellcat Annie’s in November, with an open-air booth on Tenth Avenue, and said bar sales were almost back to pre-pandemic levels. Scruffy Duffy remains closed pending return of meals inside. (Hughes and a partner opened Scruffy’s on Eighth Avenue in 1990, then Hughes alone moved it to the current location in 2019. Hughes relaunched Annie’s in 2009, after running it as Pony Bar for eight years.)

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Hughes laments the suffering the shutdown has caused so many of his friends in the industry, but said the crisis has cemented his pre-pandemic desire to leave the company.

“I’m hoping to catch one of those crypto dudes who always wanted to own a bar,” said Hughes, noting that he put a sign up front to attract curious potential buyers. However, not everyone is sold on crypto yet.

“I don’t think the dollar is going anywhere anytime soon,” said New York real estate appraiser Henry Salmon, president of Equity Valuation Associates. “The dollar in the world market is still very valuable.”

Hughes said he had received a few occasional requests. But he’s convinced he’s on the right side of the story.

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“The next crisis, you won’t have to run out and buy toilet paper,” he said. “You can just use your dollars instead.”