If you decide to copy another restaurant, you may be sued
If you decide to copy another restaurant, you may be suedA restaurant owner is suing another, because he allegedly copied her restaurant. From The NY Times,
The suit, which seeks unspecified financial damages from Mr. McFarland and the restaurant itself, charges that Ed’s Lobster Bar copies “each and every element” of Pearl Oyster Bar, including the white marble bar, the gray paint on the wainscoting, the chairs and bar stools with their wheat-straw backs, the packets of oyster crackers placed at each table setting and the dressing on the Caesar salad.
Interestingly enough, I just had some friends from Salem told me that Vault Martini bar had their menu copied by a bar down there, right down to the paper it was printed on. I can understand the people at Vault being upset as well as the owner of Pearl Oyster Bar.
But the detail that seems to gnaw at her most is a $7 appetizer on Mr. McFarland’s menu: “Ed’s Caesar.”
She has never eaten it, but she and her lawyers claim it is made from her own Caesar salad recipe, which calls for a coddled egg and English muffin croutons.
She learned it from her mother, who extracted it decades ago from the chef at a long-gone Los Angeles restaurant. It became a kind of signature at Pearl. And although she taught Mr. McFarland how to make it, she said she had guarded the recipe more closely than some restaurateurs watch their wine cellars.
“When I taught him, I said, ‘You will never make this anywhere else,’ ” she insisted. According to lawyers for Ms. Charles, the Caesar salad recipe is a trade secret and Mr. McFarland had no more business taking it with him after he left than a Coca-Cola employee entrusted with the formula for Diet Coke.
Mr. McFarland called the allegation that he was a Caesar salad thief “a pretty ridiculous claim.”
First of all, “coddled egg and English muffin croutons” on a Caesar salad? Ack! Who the heck would copy that! But I digress. It sounds to me like Pearl Oyster Bar has a pretty good case. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
You can read the whole article “Chef Sues Over Intellectual Property” here.
cookforhire says
English muffin croutons? That is weird. And egg on the salad? No way. The coddled egg is an ingredient in the dressing.
Wasn’t there some mention about Ed’s in the Dining section recently?
suds sister says
More info on Serious Eats:
http://www.seriouseats.com/required_eating/2007/06/rebecca-charles-is-mad-as-hell.html
Sir Loins says
“Why is it I find so many great articles in the daily NY Times rather than our local papers?”
FD, next time you pick up, say, a Sunday Oregonian, check the byline credits. I bet you’d be surprised at just how many articles are credited to the NY Times.
Aside from local and syndicated columns and the Metro section, I wonder just how much original content is actually in our humble rag.
Nate says
Well, it doesn’t say that the egg is on the salad. I read that as simply meaning it’s one of the ingredients, which is literally the in definition of Caesar dressing. As for the English muffin croutons, maybe if they were really good English muffins…
Seems like she’s got more of a case based on the appearance and if there are other items that appear on both menus.
Bigfoot says
The only reason we still get the “O” is our delivery person. The Times gets thrown on the grass. The guy from the “O” picks it up and puts it with the “O” on our front porch.
the cobra says
i worked for a prominent restaurant once that had it’s menu copied word for word by this place in another state. right down to the actual menu copy, and the names of all of these original drinks, and dishes.
oh, and that place won restaurant of the year in that city, with this stolen menu. crazy, right?
brazenfriend says
Interesting that your friend said the Vault menu had been copied in Salem since the owners at Vault spent months copying drink recipes and names directly from the Brazen Bean!