Bitcoin Nightlife FAIL

[nyusternie]

After months of anticipation, I finally had the pleasure of visiting EVR the "most popular" Bitcoin bar in the US.

Here is a breakdown of my expenses tonight (8/7):

FIAT (USD)

Tappan Zee Bridge - $5.00
from Rockland County to New York City

Cover Charge - $20.00
just happened to be an event night (Playboy & Swingers??? ummmm ok)

Food - $30.00
kitchen closed at 10pm so we ate across the street

Tip - $15.00
very good bar service

Bathroom Attendant - $5.00
ultra nice bathroom

Gas on the Palisades - $10.00
rough cost of the round-trip

Bitcoin (BTC)

4x Martinis - 0.62 BTC ($62.00 USD)
2x Shots - 0.31 BTC ($31.00 USD)
(drinks were awesome)


Highlights

+1 FREE Parking
FREE street parking was available (about 1 block away) on 38th & 6th. Sweet!

+1 Cool Scene
Showed up in jeans and sandals. Was worried when I saw the bouncer behind the velvet ropes (on a wed night, really?), but everyone was really cool.

+3 Met Charlie Shrem
He was coming out as we were going in. He took one look at us and knew we were there for Bitcoin (lol) -- with a pretty girl on his arm, he still took the time to convo with us (#SuperNiceGuy) Promised a FREE round if we pay with BTC (I guess on a non-event night). Told me that BitInstant would be back this weekend??? Fingers crossed

+3 Met a few people at the bar talking about Bitcoin

+2 "Successful" txs took on a couple seconds

Issues

-2 BitPay Fail
Our first round of drinks failed on BitPay. Extremely discouraging for my first in-person btc tx. However, the manager was more the agreeable (when I showed him my tx log) to cover the drinks.

-2 Cover Charge & Gratuity
It would have been nice to be able to pay the cover and bar tip in BTC.

-1 Bithow?
All the staff had heard of it, but virtually no one knew how to use it. Was that an iPad Mini? Android would have been nice

TL;DR
My first attempt at a Bitcoin Night in NYC ended in spending $85.00 USD and 0.93 BTC ($93.00).
Not what I was hoping for. Rating 5/10

[Lethn]

Speaking as someone who is trying to get a business setup that is purely accepting Bitcoin, accepting Bitcoin properly is a royal pain in the arse, it's all very much in alpha right now, I don't think I could say it's in beta because of all the problems you can run into hope things get better for the next time you visit, sounds like a lot of problems are just with software. I'm surprised that bitpay don't check that their services are working properly with the way they're almost certainly making millions of these people in transactions, sounds to me like they're just milking profit rather than running a business.

Some of the software I've seen for accepting Bitcoin has more bugs and problems in it than Fallout New Vegas on launch, the only real way to do business right now seems to be doing everything manually.

[pand70]

What were you hoping for?Girls hitting on you because you use bitcoins?
Also saying 5/10 doesn't make any sense because of the way you are rating your "bitcoin night".

[J603]

Damn, $15 shots? Is that normal? I'm not of legal drinking age (in the US) but I've bought them in other places and they were like $4 max.

[westkybitcoins]

+3 Met Charlie Shrem
He was coming out as we were going in. He took one look at us and knew we were there for Bitcoin (lol) -- with a pretty girl on his arm, he still took the time to convo with us (#SuperNiceGuy) Promised a FREE round if we pay with BTC (I guess on a non-event night). Told me that BitInstant would be back this weekend??? Fingers crossed

 

[nyusternie]

Some of the software I've seen for accepting Bitcoin has more bugs and problems in it than Fallout New Vegas on launch, the only real way to do business right now seems to be doing everything manually.

The BitPay FAIL was a huge letdown for me. I questioned why they couldn't just pull up their tx log to see if my tx showed up. The manager just said he'd cover our drinks, but that didn't sit well with me. The following 2 txs went through without a hitch. For a "casual/first-time" Bitcoiner that could have been all she wrote.

Damn, $15 shots? Is that normal? I'm not of legal drinking age (in the US) but I've bought them in other places and they were like $4 max.

only in NYC (which is why i now live in ATL)

Also saying 5/10 doesn't make any sense because of the way you are rating your "bitcoin night".

I was just hoping to minimize my fiat expenditures; but ended up spending almost as much in USD as BTC. We arrived too late for dinner and it was an event night; that really threw things off.
------------------------------------

I have a lot more respect for Kashmir Hill and the Bitcoin Newlyweds. I'm working on a project of my own and this experience served as a baseline as to the State of Bitcoin.

I'm actually hoping to make it back tonight (early enough for dinner). I envisioned EVR as a place that I could take BTCurious to show them what its all about. But I don't want to be spending fiat at every turn. Kind of goes against the point.