There may be no city in America with more naturally beautiful, welcoming communal public spaces than San Francisco. It's about building a community period and the value we place on creating and serving the communities that we operate in.'

In an interview with Forbes promoting the restaurant launch, Sigel said, 'For us, it's not about building a web3/NFT community. The word, adored in the crypto world, is used relentlessly in all of Sho marketing materials, as though if said enough times this ultra-bourgeois establishment under the bright lights of Salesforce Tower’s beaming helmet will somehow magically help the working man under Sauron’s gaze. In maybe a projection of the venture’s deficits, the most common word used in interviews and marketing blurbs surrounding the decidedly exclusionary club is “community.” Ballard-like dystopian metaphor come to life, the private lounge, which will charge a top-tier membership fee of $300,000 a pop (yes, really, more on that later), will be situated 70 feet above surrounding homeless encampments. What’s more galling than the repeated use of the terms “immersive” and “experiential” to describe an actual restaurant is the fact that, as the group’s website proudly proclaims, the astronomically expensive and exclusive eatery “is the only rooftop restaurant located on the Salesforce Transit Center’s roof.”Īs downtown San Francisco suffers through soaring homelessness, vacant storefronts and a deadly fentanyl epidemic, the idea of its newest public space only providing food for those willing to spend exorbitant sums is brazen. 'SHO Club is a member’s only NFT-based hospitality club providing exclusive access to immersive experiences and services around its flagship restaurant, SHO,' reads the blurb.

The wording around the club’s recent media blitz reads like a parody of Silicon Valley’s repellent buzzwordery. The venture is led by Josh Sigel, a self-described “internationally recognized thought leader and innovator.” The restaurant, slated to open sometime next year, will include the members-only Sho Club Sky Lounge and will be perched atop the western end of Salesforce Park’s four-block stretch in a neighborhood no one from San Francisco is calling the East Cut.

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