Alfredo Romero, owner of Taco Amaiz in Elliott Stables. A Mexican restaurant called Broke Boy Taco sent a cease and desist letter to his restaurant.
Broke Boy Tacos, part-owned by Israel Adesanya, said a new taco outlet was mimicking its brand through marketing of traditional birria tacos.
Mexican chef and owner of Taco Amaiz, Alfredo Romero, said he believed it was ‘disrespectful’ to claim intellectual property rights related to traditional cuisine.
Sean Yarbrough, Broke Boy Taco’s founder, regrets not speaking to Romero first and won’t pursue legal action, saying he apologises for the tone of a legal letter.
A Mexican-born chef says he was floored when lawyers for an Auckland restaurant part-owned by UFC fighter Israel Adesanya demanded he stop marketing tacos.
Broke Boy Tacos in Mt Albert – which counts the former middleweight champ as a major investor – sent a cease and desist demand last monthto Taco Amaiz, a rival city centre taqueria.
Broke Boy Tacos has quickly grown into a local food fixture because of its beef birria tacos, social media fame and founder Sean Yarbrough’s rags-to-riches story of recovering from homelessness and addiction in his native United States.
However, Broke Boy has accused newly opened Taco Amaiz in Elliott Stables of piggybacking off the former’s fame by “passing off” its marketing and branding to mimic that of the popular Mt Albert eatery.
He felt Broke Boy Taco was using its famous backer’s name to throw its weight around, with the taco tussle following a series of recent New Zealand food industry intellectual property stoushes that have made headlines.
Alfredo Romero, owner of Taco Amaiz in Elliott Stables, said he's travelled in Mexico researching corn and pre-Spanish Mexican cuisine. Photo / Dean Purcell
Fast-food outlet KFC sent a cease and desist order last month to a Christchurch 17-year-old who had named his food truck YFC and put his face on a logo mimicking that of the major brand, RNZ reported.
Yarbrough claimed his letter to Taco Amaiz arose out of repeated confusion among his customers.
He’d created a distinctive look in the way he dressed and the way his restaurants looked to complement his unique story of turning his life around since coming to New Zealand in 2021.
It’s a look and taste that captured Adesanya’s attention, who invested after making repeated visits and developing a keen appreciation of the tacos.
But recently on social media and in person, Yarbrough said people kept commenting about his “new” store.
“Customers would walk up to me in the middle of the street and go, ‘Hey, I can’t believe you got a new shop’,” Yarbrough said.
However, now that his business had grown, he had been advised by a legal team. When he mentioned his customers’ confusion, the lawyers counselled that a letter should be sent.
As a new owner, Yarbrough said he deferred to their judgment, believing this was normal communication in the business world.
The legal letter alleged a breach of intellectual property, claiming Romero’s business had mimicked and duplicated “significant components” of Broke Boy Taco’s business system, “including but not restricted to branding, menus and other distinctive elements”.
Romero told the Herald the letter landed like a blow, as he was also grinding hard to establish a successful new restaurant.
He engaged lawyers, who replied that Broke Boy Taco’s allegations were “very general”.
“It is not really possible to have a constructive debate about this matter at present, given the absence of detail in your letter,” Romero’s legal response said.
It argued the two taquerias were 7km apart and that while Broke Boy Taco’s menu had only three food items, Taco Amaiz had many more.
The letter also said Taco Amaiz’s red and white colours were linked to Coca-Cola’s marketing in Mexico.
The brand was now deeply embedded in Mexico’s urban landscape, with a long history of red branding on small Mexican corner stores and taquerias, the letter said.
Romero said he had also sought permission from Coca-Cola to use its colours.
Sean Yarbrough took issue with the prominent way birria tacos had been marketed at Taco Amaiz. Photo / Dean Purcell
The letter concluded that there were no grounds in Broke Boy Taco’s legal demands.
“It would be a costly mistake for your client to issue court proceedings, but if they were to do such proceedings they would be vigorously defended.”
Romero said that rather than stop marketing his birria tacos, he could offer lessons on how to make them to Yarbrough.
He said he opened his restaurant with a Peruvian partner, having come to New Zealand 14 years ago.
Romero believed the dispute was anti-competitive and not a fair fight.
Romero said in his view, “His whole back story is about being homeless, and then he’s using the money from his investor funds to go and silence other people.
“They don’t want competitors.”
But Yarbrough insisted that was not his intention.
“By no means would I try to crush the little guy. I would never try to do that.”
Yarbrough said he not only knew most of the other taco outlets in town, he was friends with them.
When they ran out of ingredients, they sometimes called him for help, he said.
He believed the confusion was due to the prominent marketing of birria in Taco Amaiz’s window in a similar way to his business.
But Yarbrough now regretted not listening to his own judgment and talking to Romero first rather than sending a legal letter.
He said he would not be taking legal action and was not in the business of making enemies, saying Romero was like him “trying to grind to get his paper [money]”.
“I would love to apologise to this guy’s face if he took it in a way where he thought that I was gonna come and shut him down.”
Adesanya was approached for comment.
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