SAN ANTONIO — A burger beef could soon land two San Antonio restaurants in court.
The Longhorn Café has issued Mr. Juicy a cease-and-desist over the terms "Big Juicy," "home of the original Big Juicy" and "original Big Juicy."
It’s a fight the man behind Mr. Juicy says he’s ready for.
“I was really shocked to receive the cease-and-desist letter. We’ve been doing business for 15 months and it seems like it came out of nowhere.”
San Antonio restauranteur Andrew Weisman has spent 30 years in the food business and says he’s never seen anything like the letter he got telling him to drop the name Mr. Juicy.
“There’s no perfect time to receive something like that, but this seems to be one of the worst,” Weissman said.
The letter dated Sept. 24 states the firm representing Longhorn Café has claims over the aforementioned phrases because they’ve been in business in San Antonio since 1984.
The letter also states Weismann’s use of the name is confusing customers, and that it's being used to drum up business.
“We don’t feel they have a leg to stand on. We don’t have anything on our menu that calls itself juicy, big juicy or anything to that nature. We have a name of a restaurant, that has a prefix "Mr." I don’t know how Mr. juicy and the big juicy, which is a menu description, interfere or infringe on each other,” Weissman said.
Now he has hired an attorney and plans to fight.
His attorney, Saul Perloff, tells KENS 5 that while Longhorn claims to own the juicy names, they didn’t file for the copyright until the day they sent the cease-and-desist letter.
He believes this copywriting the description “juicy” would be like filing suit over the air we breathe.
Longhorn Café’s attorney, John Cave, explains this isn’t about shutting anyone down, but protecting their client. In a statement, he tells KENS 5 the move is to protect the big juicy branding and put an end to any confusion.
Online, there’s been plenty of people upset over the letter, but Weismann says he doesn’t want anyone to lose business right now.
“I encourage people to support them and continue supporting them. I just hope that we can figure out a way to resolve this amicably,” he said.
But if they can’t find a resolution, he’s ready to fight.
“Oh yeah, I’ll die on this hill, man," he said. "This is something that we’ve created and we’re proud of it and we’ll fight this vigorously. We’ll defend this."