We must be in what could be the darkest of San Francisco timelines as a “cryptobro” has reportedly bought Toronado per the SF Standard.
While there’s no official confirmation from the owner Dave Keene, the SF Standard is now reporting that a “cryptobro” has bought Toronado and wants to launch some sort of a memecoin crypto coin called ToronadoCoin. The purported new owners, Orion Parrott and Christopher Hussain formed an LLC called Toronado Forever earlier in March. The loyal Toronado drinkers have not taken this news well.
I reached out to Dave Keene for comment, but he was unable to provide a comment, citing they are under NDA. It’s common for business property sales to have an NDA in place once a contact is signed.
The real estate agent is reporting, via SFGate, that Toronado has not been sold. This is a very nuanced statement though. They are under contract and in a contingency stage. So while it hasn’t closed, a sales contract has been signed. Oddly the real estate agent noted that they had never met Orion Parrott. Odd comment to make. If the contract were not with Orion Parrott there would be no reason to deny them as the under contract buyers. Double speak, a real estate agent specialty. They also noted that two backup formal offers exist – for what that’s worth.
Comments from the Toronado Drinkers Facebook group have not been supportive of the new purported owners.
“I definitely would never go back if this sale is real” – Tim Bessie
“Not gonna sugar coat it this is absolutely f*cked if true.” – Jacob Lima
And lots of posters wondering if this is an early April Fools Day joke.
“Please tell me this is satire…if not, this is an absolute worst case scenario.” – Nathan Clevenger
The best evidence of this sale being true was posted by Mike Brenner: “On March 12th, Orion Parrott and Christopher Hussain formed an LLC called Toronado Forever. While it might not be finalized, every bit of evidence so far points to this sadly being real.” – that registration can be seen by searching the California Secretary of State site.
“… Not to mention knowing that supporting the bar, under these circumstances, would involve putting money directly in the pockets of people involved in a sector that is rife with fraud and the kind of tech utopian-libertarian BS that many of us believe have done so much harm to the city, nation, and world. You may disagree with the views expressed above, of course, but it’s just not credible to argue that it doesn’t represent a significant change to the bar.” – Nathan Clevenger
A concern seems to be that this possible new owner might turn Toronado into a laughing stock amongst its most loyal. Many loyal Toronado drinkers are either old-time San Francisco people that hate the tech invasion of the city, or are liberal-leaning and believe that the crypto arena is filled with nothing but Ponzi scheme fraudsters.
Update 4/1 – Credit to Orion Parrott for spending time on the Facebook groups SF Bay Area Beer and Toronado Drinkers answering questions from both happy and upset customers. So far he seems to be saying all of the right things. I for one, hope he can make it all work.
Update 4/2 – Put “cryptobro” in quotes out of respect to Mr. Parrott — we disagree on what a “cryptobro” is. But I will take him at his word that he is not one and just use the term as a reference to the SF Standard article.
