If you live in Williamsburg, you’ve walked past the shuttered Urban Outfitters at 98 North 6th Street. A Swiss luxury watch brand and the hospitality group behind the “world’s first NFT restaurant” are turning that empty three-story building into a members-only club, and most of your neighbors will never get past the door.
The Brooklyn Paper first reported the plan on July 7. “A luxury watchmaker and the group behind the ‘world’s first NFT restaurant’ are bringing a members-only club to Williamsburg,” the paper wrote. It described the project as “a joint venture between the Swiss watch brand Breitling and VCR Group,” and reported that VCR Group “aims to open the club by the second half of 2027.”
VCR Group is the company behind Flyfish Club, marketed as the “world’s first NFT restaurant.” An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a blockchain receipt, and Flyfish sold its membership as tradable tokens instead of reservations. The club, Brownstoner reported, “sold 1,151 membership tokens on its public launch day, and raked in $14.8 million before even opening its doors.” Then, “right before opening day, the club paid a $750,000 penalty to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for selling the NFTs as unregistered securities.” Decrypt, covering the September 2024 settlement, reported the same haul: Flyfish “created approximately 3,000 NFTs ahead of the launch, raking in total proceeds of $14.8 million for the sales.”
Gary Vaynerchuk sits behind both ventures. He is, the Brooklyn Paper reported, one of VCR Group’s four founders: “Among VCR Group’s four founders is Gary Vaynerchuk (also known as Gary Vee), the media mogul, Resy co-founder, investor.” Flyfish, Decrypt noted, “was backed by prominent online entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk.”
David Rodolitz, VCR Group’s co-founder and CEO, told the Brooklyn Paper the Williamsburg space will be nothing like Flyfish. “It’s an entirely different concept,” he said. “It will have a strong focus on food and community, and the design will be extremely thoughtful with a leading designer.” According to a liquor license application filed with the local community board, patrons “can expect the club to feature live music, a rooftop lounge, and a retail element.” What membership will cost, and what the club will be called, have not been made public.
The liquor license is where the neighborhood already weighed in, and where it can still push. Brooklyn Community Board 1, the local advisory body covering Williamsburg and Greenpoint, “voted unanimously to recommend approval of a liquor license for the venue in May, sending its recommendation on to the New York State Liquor Authority for review.” A recommendation is not the final word. The State Liquor Authority issues the actual license.
Not everyone within earshot is sold. Tyler Foote, a North Williamsburg resident, wrote to the board during the review. “I am deeply concerned about how a private for-profit club would affect the peace of myself and all my neighbors around me,” Foote wrote.
The club is the next rung on a ladder Williamsburg has been climbing for a decade. Urban Outfitters opened the store in 2014 and, Brownstoner recounted, it “stood out amid storefronts housing small, locally owned businesses and eateries.” “In the following years, major brands, ranging from Apple and Whole Foods to Chanel and Carhartt, set up shop in the neighborhood, paving the way for an elite dining club in a community once known as a haven for artists,” the outlet reported. Urban Outfitters left in 2024. The store you could walk into is becoming a club you cannot.
If a private club on North 6th Street is going to reshape your block, the room where you get a say is the same one neighbors packed this spring over another venue’s license. Brooklyn Community Board 1 hears liquor applications in public at the Swinging Sixties Senior Center, 211 Ainslie St. in Williamsburg. As Bushwick Daily reported when residents mobilized against a nearby megavenue, “Those wishing to speak during the public session must sign up in person between 5:45 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.,” and people who cannot make it can email written comments before the meeting. Two minutes each. Show up if North 6th Street is yours.
Featured image: Helen Alfvegren via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
