Keene’s New Vietnamese Food Truck Accepts Bitcoin!

Big news! Keene now has Vietnamese cuisine available Wednesday through Sunday 11am-7pm on the side of Route 101 with the recent opening of “Bon Vivant – Gourmet Street Food“!

Chef and entrepreneur Isabelle Rose is cooking up delicious Vietnamese, French, and Vegetarian fare at reasonable prices. She told me that the food truck had been a dream of hers since 2009 when she started to make Vietnamese food for the local farmers market. Her food was very popular there and she started saving money up to launch Bon Vivant without going into debt. Smart lady! I stopped in this week for the first time and enjoyed a large bowl of steak pho noodle. It was delicious and very filling. I’m excited to have more ethnic food available fresh in Keene!

Not only is the food excellent, but Bon Vivant is accepting payment in bitcoin! Isabelle says she decided to accept bitcoin after reading about it here at Free Keene and being encouraged by Chris Rietmann, the owner of next-door Route 101 Local Goods. Just today she says three customers have noticed the bitcoin sign and asked what it is.

Bon Vivant is the newest member of a growing community of area businesses that accept the evolutionary crytpocurrency. The food truck is located right next door to Route 101 Local Goods which also accepts bitcoin for purchases and even has the area’s only public bitcoin vending machine!

Keene’s not the only area of New Hampshire where bitcoin acceptance is spreading. Free Keene blogger Steven Zeiler recently announced that a major Portsmouth restaurant is now accepting bitcoin.

Keene’s Bon Vivant is already visible on the CoinMap – a website that shows the locations of bitcoin-accepting businesses around the world. Per capita, Keene has more bitcoin-friendly businesses than does San Francisco, the supposed #1 place for bitcoin acceptance. With a population of over 837,000, San Francisco has, according to CoinMap, about 114 bitcoin-accepting businesses – that’s one for every 7,342 population. By comparison, Keene has over 23,000 population with 13 bitcoin businesses – that’s one for every 1,769. Keene has four times the concentration than does San Francisco.

To learn more about bitcoin, the amazingly successful decentralized cryptocurrency, visit Bitcoin.com and to join the local network of bitcoin-accepting merchants and customers, check out the Keene Bitcoin Network on facebook.