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Needless to say that the restaurant industry was highly affected by the recent covid-19 pandemic. Restaurant owners were forced to get on the creative side and put themselves in the shoes of locked-up customers in order to find viable solutions. Finding new revenue streams by having an online shop for example was imperative to survive the long lasting corona period. Nonetheless when government measurements were loosened up or removed for the restaurant industry, the industry was left with a financial hangover that resulted with problems of paying off employees/debts and finding suitable staff. In this article we will discuss if perhaps NFTs could lead the way for restaurant managers in further growing their business, because in every crisis, there is opportunity!
NFTs are definitely a new opportunity for restaurant owners although it’s uncharted territory for most of them. Innovative pilot restaurants typically pave the way: global restaurant brand “Chotto Matte” took the leap forward with NFTs by releasing their first NFT collection in the beginning of April 2022. Owners of their NFT receive exclusive membership access with an array of benefits. These include personal chefs at home, invitations to every Chotto Matte restaurant opening, access to a yearly distillery, vineyard and much more. This proves that offering NFTs as a restaurant is not all about showing off that you own a NFT but more about the perks these NFTs may provide for the owners of it.
NFTs can also lead to having more engagement with your target audience, something culinary experts “Tom Colicchio” and “Spike Mendelsohn” understood quite well. They launched CHFTY Pizzas, an NFT collection whose purpose is to build the greatest chef and foodie NFT community. Members are granted access to this community, digital masterclasses, events/pop-ups, custom kitchen accessories and apparel.
Although NFTs are still a relatively new concept in the restaurant industry, they are swiftly establishing themselves as not just a viable but also a desirable choice. Below, you can explore some of the ways NFTs can be implemented in the restaurant industry.
This could be one of the highest value use-case of NFTs for restaurants. It’s sometimes a struggle to find funding for opening a new restaurant. It is difficult to secure money to operate a restaurant. Banks and other traditional lending institutions are usually wary about financing new restaurants. The restaurant Flyfish in New York, which is backed by Gary Vaynerchuk, is the best example of this thus far. They raised $14 million by selling membership NFTs. These NFTs are essentially membership tokens that guarantee future access levels and priority access. This is a wonderful example of a restaurant NFT use case.
By launching NFTs as a restaurant, you unlock the potential to attract customers in buying your NFTs. The incentive in buying your NFT could be that customers are given access to events, courses, workshops, new products or even discounts when uploading their receipts. All resulting in an increase of your restaurant’s brand awareness due to social media.
In the beginning, NFTs were almost solely used to provide people with collectible digital items, such as images or audio files. However, as the technology matures, businesses are realizing that the long-term success of NFTs depends on them having useful purposes beyond the collectible element. NFTs can be utilized to power customer loyalty programs. Each customer can purchase an NFT, which includes a permanent and unique blockchain entry. This NFT then serves as the customer's proof of program participation, and relevant data such as visits and discounts can be managed digitally as well.
When a restaurant launches NFTs and implements a tokenized membership structure, it creates an incredible platform for customer involvement. NFT holders can be granted access to new menu tasting, special events and more. Access will be easy, quick, secure, and eventually confirmed to have valid access because the token will be held in the customer's digital wallet. The opportunities to communicate and eventually transact with your customers will expand as the speed of transaction in restaurants increases. There will be many more opportunities for customers to interact with you.
What are recipes if not the creative work of a chef? They can't really be sold outside of the creator's kitchen. They are non-fungible by definition. Furthermore, the source of the majority of popular recipes is unknown. It's difficult for anyone to claim that their recipe is unique. Assume a recipe is created, and an NFT is minted as a result. This would serve as proof of the recipe's creation, allowing it to be published with confidence in its origins. It may be more social, allowing the creators' brands to reach a wider audience. Other people could license it with ease.
When a customer purchases something from a restaurant, they generate a transaction on the point of sale (POS) system. Currently, this transaction will be stored in the restaurant's POS system. What if that became an NFT and was published on the blockchain? What if it was linked to the digital wallet of the customer? It would be relevant data for the loyalty program. In terms of interfacing with other software platforms, it would make the type of POS system in use unimportant. The data could be anonymous or linked to an identity. In a marketplace, the anonymous data would be valuable.
The most important decision restaurants will have to make is which type of NFT platform will best help them mold their NFTs and develop a program. You might consider building your own NFT marketplace. However, this is not recommended due to the cost and time it would take to develop and build the NFT marketplace. Instead involving white label partners is the better route to take for restaurants. It is likely to become the preferred route for restaurants entering the NFT business.
Restaurants can blend customisation with fast, turnkey growth by working with a qualified white label partner. First and foremost, the white label approach assists restaurants in avoiding the complexities and costs associated with starting a market from scratch. This model, in addition to avoiding the risks of experimenting, allows restaurants to invest in tried-and-true technology. Finally, white labeling gives a professional turnkey solution that can be branded and customized as needed.
You might wonder why it’s not a better option to mint your restaurant’s NFTs on one of the most popular NFT marketplaces such as Opensea. If you offer your NFTs on Opensea as a restaurant your user base will be weakened by the activities of other adjoining or competing brands. Furthermore these kinds of NFT marketplaces are run on the Ethereum blockchain, which consume massive amounts of energy and process transactions slowly. Heavy bandwidth consumption by these technologies leads to expensive fees. A solution is offered by Hedera, an NFT marketplace with high transaction speed, low bandwidth consumption resulting in low fees.
Considering all of the above, Sayl is exactly the solution to launch NFTs for your restaurant. It’s an integrated platform combining loyalty, rewards and retention in one single solution. Next to creating, minting, selling NFTs and tracking the usage of the NFTs, it enables restaurant managers to offer a premium online food ordering service, loyalty and payments.
To conclude, NFT technology is disrupting many industries and showing immense potential within marketing. Some of the industry's biggest and luxurious brands have already begun to use NFTs for giveaways, collaborations, customer loyalty programs and much more.This trend is expected to accelerate in the months and years
