A legendary cash-only Lower Haight beer bar is being bought by a crypto investor whose plans include launching something that sounds a lot like a meme coin and developing the bar into a global brand, à la Blue Bottle.
Orion Parrott, who works for “the best founder community in crypto,” broke the news of his pending purchase in a private Telegram chat named “Crypto VC Deal Flow,” The Standard can reveal after obtaining the messages.
A fund general partner at Orange DAO, Parrott announced the news he’d entered into contract in the Telegram group chat with the following message: “Thrilled to share my own personal project in this private channel of Chads! I am building the next great San Francisco food & beverage brand in the steps of Blue Bottle (acquired $700M val.) and La Boulange (acquired $100M).”
“Keep this under wraps for now,” Parrott said in the chat.
“We’re not really ready to talk about it, but I am buying it,” Parrott said over the phone. “We want to preserve its legacy.”
Parrott said he plans to create a cryptocurrency related to the bar but declined to give more details.
“It probably won’t be a meme coin but some kind of coin,” Parrott said. A meme coin is a type of cryptocurrency that is often inspired by internet memes, characters, or trends, such as Dogecoin or $Trump.
When The Standard visited the bar on Thursday morning, staff said they were unaware of the deal. Attempts to reach the bar’s longtime owner, Dave Keene, were unsuccessful.
Parrott did not disclose how much he paid for the bar. He said he hopes to have the keys within three to five months and plans to keep the staff and selection of beers. Katy Lynn, a real estate agent for the property, declined to speak about the sale.
A SoMa resident, Parrott has lived in San Francisco for four years and the Bay Area for 12. He previously worked as a systems engineer at defense contractor Raytheon, led a Y combinator-backed tech company, and was a partner for a real estate fund that preserves historical homes in Massachusetts’s bucolic Berkshires.
The Toronado Pub is a celebrated Haight Street destination for beer enthusiasts — winning the top spot as the best beer bar in the world according to 2024 Reader’s Choice rankings. It offers 50 draft taps, three cask hand-pulls, and a collection of over 90 canned and bottled beers.
“The seasoned patina in the interior is earned, with layers of Trappist ale signs, brewery stickers, vintage bottles, and more that has accumulated over the years — you can’t design this vibe; you can only nurture it over decades,” reads the property listing that went live in January, with an asking price of $1.75 million for the property and business.
But something smells off to fans of the bar, as Parrott also plans to “kickstart a token ecosystem” named ToronadoCash. In the VC chat group, he asks for investors to form a $250,000 “liquidity pool,” which he describes as “a rare insider opportunity for core team & friends.”
“I think it’s probably antithetic to the impression I had of the bar,” said a source with knowledge of the deal. “It’s emblematic of a larger problem in San Francisco: tech bros coming in and buying a 40-year-old institution and making a coin out of it and all that stuff.”
Two neighborhood residents who were mounting their own bid echoed that sentiment. Reacting to the news of the sale, Aaron, 41, and Cody, 37, who have lived nearby for about 10 years and describe themselves as “skate buds,” said the sale to a crypto investor who wants to launch some kind of coin feels like “bringing a Tesla to a hot rod meet.”
The two said they submitted an offer letter to buy the bar and signed a contract to be a potential buyer, but they weren’t able to come up with enough money in time.
“We wanted to keep the bar exactly how it was and have local people do food pop-ups and record swaps, DJ nights, to bring a younger crowd into the bar,” Cody said. “[This] is like filming a Black Sabbath concert with your cellphone; it’s just not it,” Aaron added. (Both declined to give their last names.)
Parrott said ToronadoCash is a play on words referencing a controversial cryptocurrency called Tornado Cash that aims to obscure transactions.
“We’re not going to be controversial like that, but since the bar is called Toronado, there is an opportunity,” Parrott told The Standard. “We’re going to explore that down the road and again — not changing anything about the bar.”
Parrott kept his plans for the bar close to the chest. But a recent post on his X account offers a glimpse of his feelings about the takeover of beloved institutions by private investors.
The US federal closure of many scientific and academic institutions, though a travesty, is a phenomenal business opportunity for privatizing and decentralizing valuable public goods and services.
— oparrott.eth 🍊 (@OrionParrott) March 27, 2025
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the sale has not yet been finalized and is in the contingency period.