After a grand opening in March, Australian fast-food diner Shiba Wings has seen plenty of customers walking through the doors for their fried delectables. 

Their appetite, however, hasn’t translated to crypto payments.

The Shiba Inu (SHIB) themed diner first opened its doors in Australia’s beachside city Surfers Paradise on March 18, 2023.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, the pseudonymous owner of the diner, “Elijah,” said their first week saw roughly $168 (250 Australian dollars) worth of crypto payments. In the months that followed total crypto payments dropped off, falling to an average of around $34 (50 Australian dollars) per week.

Shiba Wings diner. Source: Paradise Centre.

Most of these payments have been Shiba Inu, followed by Dogecoin (DOGE) and then Cardano (ADA).

However, Elijah doesn’t believe this is a cause for concern, stressing that crypto payments themselves aren’t the focal point of the business. Instead, Elijah said he's more focused on serving up good quality food and building the Shiba Wings brand itself.

“[Crypto payments] were more of an add-on feature. You generally don't want to be using your crypto to make payments, or you’ll end up like that Bitcoin guy that bought the Pizzas.”

“I actually advise people not to spend lots of crypto here. I say ‘listen I would keep that, probably not a coin you'd want to use on food, maybe use a different one that you hold a lot more of,’” Elijah said.

Elijah said his goal was to use the crypto element as a way to create a fast food franchise that could compete with McDonalds, mainly by leveraging the Shiba Inu brand.

The Shiba Inu community has a large, international following. At the time of publication, the Twitter accounts for the Shiba Inu Token and the Shib Army flex a combined audience of more than 4.1 million followers.

“I bought the Intellectual Property rights to Shiba Inu in Australia,” Elijah said, noting that he plans to leverage the ownership of the logo and associated branding materials to launch a series of Shiba Wings franchises by the end of the year.

“My goal is to create the next fast food franchise concept to compete against a Maccas, but obviously giving it a very different feel and spin, having the crypto element as an innovation in the fast food space.”

Elijah also pointed to Shiba Wings’ upcoming NFT release which will allow for holders to own a share of the business itself. Elijah says that the NFT rollout will see “15% ownership of every restaurant given to the community,” essentially making them quasi-shareholders which will see them be paid quarterly dividends.

He added that there will soon be a separate Shiba Wings token that will also provide holders with in-store benefits.

Related: Memecoins: From memes to multibillion-dollar pumps, scams and rug pulls

According to an August, 2022 survey from crypto exchange Crypto.com, 55% of Australian merchants and consumers were interested in purchasing goods and services in cryptocurrency, with almost half (47%) of all surveyed merchants saying that they were ready to accept crypto payments within a year.

Interest in pursuing crypto payments from merchants and consumers in Australia. Source: Crypto.com

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