Deloitte Accepts Bitcoin at its Restaurant Due to ‘A Lot of Requests’

Deloitte Canada announced this week that its Toronto office’s internal restaurant called Bistro 1858 now accepts bitcoin. Bitcoin.com talked to Iliana Oris Valiente, ?Strategy and Execution Lead and co-founder at Rubix by Deloitte, to find out the reason behind this decision and how much interest in Bitcoin the firm is seeing.

Also read: How to Start Your Own Bitcoin ATM Business 

Most Visible Private Restaurant

Bistro 1858 is a private restaurant exclusively for Deloitte employees and their guests. There is a security guard at the entrance of the restaurant that will turn everyone else away, wrote the Toronto Star.

Unlike most private restaurants that are tucked away from public view, this restaurant is in, what the paper calls, “a most public place” in Toronto. It is located in the Bay Adelaide Center, in the city’s financial district. Its all-glass walls make the dining area visible to anyone passing by. The tower is located at the northwest corner of Yonge and Adelaide Street.

“Bistro 1858 has a seating capacity of 75 with take-out options”, Valiente described to Bitcoin.com. “Breakfast and lunch ranges from approximately $3 to $12 for snacks and meals”, she said, adding that:

Hundreds of Deloitte practitioners purchase their meals from Bistro 1858 every day.

Deloitte Professionals Excited to Use Bitcoin

The restaurant’s co-operators, Deloitte and Benchmark Hospitality, have selected Bitpay to accept and settle bitcoin payments. Deloitte does not offer its own wallet, the firm’s representative said. “There are many great Bitcoin wallets available out there so we didn’t find it necessary to recreate the wheel and build a new wallet”.

The restaurant does not offer any incentives such as discounts for customers paying with bitcoin. “Our practitioners are encouraged to share the news with their clients and host them at Bistro 1858”, Valiente explained, noting that:

Many Deloitte professionals have shown excitement for the opportunity to start using bitcoin to buy their lunch and breakfast from Bistro 1858. If the usage of the BTM [Bitcoin ATM] machine we installed in the fall is any indication of how many people will start paying with bitcoin, we expect the number of users to grow continuously over the next few months.

Interest in Bitcoin within Deloitte

Last September, Deloitte became the first of the Big 4 consultancy firms to install a Bitcoin ATM. Located in its Toronto office, Deloitte’s BTM is operated by the firm’s blockchain team at Rubix.

Its fees are 4 percent to buy bitcoin and no fee for selling bitcoin, according to data from Coinatmradar. A mobile phone number and an ID are required to use the BTM and there is a daily limit of $100 per person.

“As the most successful large implementation of blockchain technology, Bitcoin is consistently a topic of discussion at Deloitte and with our clients”, Valiente revealed, adding that:

When we installed our BTM in the fall we received a lot of requests from within the firm to bring bitcoin to our Bistro.[…] As the industry shifts and evolves we hope to continue to bring new and valuable initiatives to our firm and our clients.

What do you think of Deloitte’s Bistro accepting bitcoin? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Deloitte, and the Toronto Star

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