Need to own a Bar?: New York Bar for sale, but the owner want to be paid in Bitcoin

“I’m hoping to catch one of these crypto dudes who always wanted to own a bar,” said Patrick Hughes.

New York City bar owner and crypto enthusiast Patrick Hughes is proposing to sell two of his famous cryptocurrency restaurants in the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood of Manhattan.

According to the New York Post story, Hughes would allow crypto payments in the form of Ether (ETH) or Bitcoin (BTC) for the selling of Hellcat Annie and Scruffy Duffy on 10th Avenue in New York City. A sign in front of the bars shows that the selling price is 800 ETH or 25 BTC for both properties—about $1 million at the time of release.

“I’m hoping to catch one of these crypto dudes who always wanted to own a bar,” said Hughes, referring to crypto as decentralized, global, and a “hot currency.”

The 56-year-old Queens native owner pointed to the shutdown triggered by the global pandemic as one of the factors behind the transaction. Hughes confirmed that he had been forced to reduce the number of workers at Hellcat Annie’s and Scruffy Duffy’s by nearly 90%, from 50 before the March outbreak to “five or six” today.

Despite the apparently first ever selling of a crypto bar in NYC, a few social media observers blamed Hughes for the timing. Bitcoin’s price has soared to fresh all-time highs into the new year, while New York companies are already reeling from the impact of the pandemic.

“NYC is a rapidly depreciating asset right now with the exodus of people leaving the city,” said Redditor Chuyito. “Hard pass.”

“Seems like he’s lowering the number of buyers for himself,” said Crypto Twitter user dladowitz. “No one is gonna commit to a price in BTC with a 30-day close period for escrow. Could double your price.”

Bars and restaurants have encouraged the use of crypto by providing Bitcoin transfers as a means of trade. Room 77, a bar and restaurant in Germany, was one of the first brick-and-mortar firms to embrace Bitcoin, with one customer ordering a pint of beer in May 2011. In October, the restaurant locked its doors, which the patrons who speculated it might have had to do with prohibitions due to the pandemic.

At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin was $37,761, down 6 percent in the last 24 hours. ETH rates rose by 21 percent in the last week to $1,266.

-KogoCrypto/Cointelegraph

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