By offering it as an option, you no longer have the option to not rely on it completely. What happens when everyone decides to pay in Bitcoins? I don't think the caterers will accept them as a form of payment - they'll echo Doug Shaftoe's sentiment:
" Doug’s regained his composure now, and is back to belly laughs. "What’ll that buy me? Pictures of naked girls on the World Wide Web?" "
Ideally you automatically eliminate Bitcoin as a payment option in the online interface when a certain threshold is passed (or just do this manually if need be). The odds of this happening, however, are slim to none as adoption is not there yet.
Regarding caterers, as I said in the previous comment in this thread it usually takes 1-2 days to withdraw fiat currency from a Bitcoin exchange. Really not a problem.
So are puka shells. And bitcoin's exchange rates are fluctuating pretty rapidly, especially since exchanges tend to randomly disappear. What happens when you have $5,000 in bitcoins, and the bithurf.com goes down and suddenly you only have $500 in bitcoins?
>And bitcoin's exchange rates are fluctuating pretty rapidly
Not that rapidly. When pricing in Bitcoin most buyers are okay with prices being based on recent pricing. Add a bit of padding to your Bitcoin price to allow for normal fluctuations and you're fine.
>What happens when you have $5,000 in bitcoins, and the bithurf.com goes down and suddenly you only have $500 in bitcoins?
You wait a couple of days for the value to go back up (at least that's how it played out when Mt. Gox crashed). Significant non-short-term pricing movements in Bitcoin land don't happen overnight.
" Doug’s regained his composure now, and is back to belly laughs. "What’ll that buy me? Pictures of naked girls on the World Wide Web?" "