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Chipotle's Tasty Made vs Tasty Burger: Who will win the name war?

The CEO of Tasty Burger believes that Chipotle not only copied the name of his Boston-based chain but that the logos are too similar in shape, cut and color.

August 8, 2016 by Cherryh Butler — editor, fcc

Chipotle has no plans of changing the name of its new burger concept —Tasty Made— despite receiving a Cease & Desist letter last month from David Dubois, CEO of Tasty Burger. He believes that Chipotle not only copied the name of his Boston-based chain but that the logos are too similar in shape, cut and color.

Although Dubois admitted that his Tasty Burger chain is small, it is not so small that Chipotle could have overlooked in, considering there are several major Chipotle stores near Tasty Burger locations.

"In fact, we share the same Landlord in one location. It would be reasonable to assume that they have seen our signage," he wrote in a statement on the Tasty Burger website.  

Dubois went on to say that when filing for the "Tasty Made" registration, Chipotle's legal team would have inevitably known about Tasty Burger, since it would have had to do a search of existing marks/registrations and come across ours.

"All of this leads us to believe that Chipotle has intentionally chosen to proceed with the ‘Tasty Made’ name and mark without regard to the obvious infringement," he said.

Chipotle disagrees, however, said Chris Arnold, the chain’s communications director.

"We fully intend to move forward with the name Tasty Made for our burger restaurant and strongly believe that we are on solid footing in doing so,” he wrote in an email to FastCasual. "The United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to register a trademark for Tasty Burger because it is merely descriptive and not enforceable."

Arnold also said that Chipotle believes that there is sufficient difference between the names and logo marks so as not to cause consumer confusion.

"We believe both brands can co-exist," he said.

Dubois claimed, however, that customers are already confused and that his brand has trademark registrations for the name, "Tasty Burger" in the United States, 26 of the 27 member countries represented by the European Union and at least 11 other countries, including Canada, Afghanistan, Japan, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

Despite the obvious David and Goliath scenario, Dubois said he will not "Stand by and watch an enormously powerful company like Chipotle move forward with opening a burger restaurant with a similar name, mark, and logo design."

"Given Chipotle's refusal to cease interfering with our established trademark rights, we have no choice but to aggressively protect our well- established mark," he said.

Tasty Burger, which has a multi-year contract with Major League Baseball and is the official burger of the Boston Red Sox, opened in 2010, and now has six units. 

Cover photo: Provided by Tasty Burger