Famous celebrity chef Chloe Coscarelli (“Chloe”) and Tom Colicchio (“Colicchio”) started a new pop-up restaurant called “Supernatural” that is in the midst of a “food fight” or lawsuit with owners of the By Chloe restaurant Chloe originally founded but no longer has an ownership interest in. After receiving cease and desist letter from BCH Hospitality Group LLC (“BCH”), Chloe and Colicchio sued BCH in a declaratory judgment action for a judgment that they do not infringe on the CHLOE® trademarks and did not breach Coscarelli’s Name, Face and Likeness Agreement (“NFL Agreement”) with BCH.
Chloe was the first vegan chef to win Cupcake Wars, a national cooking competition, on the Food Network. She is a published author of four popular cookbooks. She is known as “Chloe” and “Chef Chloe” and worked at gourmet vegan restaurants in New York and San Francisco. She has been recognized as “America’s favorite vegan chef” and featured on the “30 under 30” series by The New York Times, Zagat and Forbes. However, I must confess that although I am a pescatarian (meaning a vegetarian that eats fish) I had not heard of Chloe or her vegan restaurant until I learned about her lawsuit.
However, I have heard of Chef Tom Colicchio. He is a James Beard Award winner and also known as “Top Chef.” Colicchio received an Emmy Award for his work as a Judge on the show Top Chef. I have had the pleasure of eating at Colicchio’s New York restaurants: CRAFT (located by the fabulous Flat Iron Building), Gotham Bar & Grill and Gramercy Tavern. I am hoping to check out The Quilted Giraffe on my next trip to New York (but I digress).
Their Complaint includes the following picture of the chefs:
Chloe founded “by CHLOE” and then partnered with BCH’s predecessor. BCH is associated with James Haber and ESquared Hospitality. She claims in her lawsuit that BCH ousted her from the restaurant and she has not been involved for two years. BCH has a different story, alleging among other things, that she was “grossly negligent” related to losing leases and sabotaging deals with partners. I have not delved into this messy business “divorce” so I will comment no further.
After Chloe left, BCH started “Sweets by Chloe bakery” pictured below:
am starting to get hungry so I better get back to the legal dispute. In their Complaint, the chefs included the following picture related to their vegan restaurant:
The chefs argued that the restaurant’s name is “Supernatural” which is not similar to By Chloe at all. The name highlights that the food is super natural. According to the Complaint, the two chefs collaboration arose from Colicchio writing “An Open letter to (Male) Chefs” on the platform Medium about rampant harassment in the restaurant industry. It sounds like Colicchio is on the right side of the Me-Too movement.
In contrast, BCH focuses on the lower portion that identified the two chefs involved with the new SUPERNATURAL restaurant. Specifically, the lower part of the sign is “CHLOE COSCARELLI X TOM COLICCHIO COLLABORATION.” The chefs will likely argue that their names are informative and the trademark and certainly any dominant mark for their restaurant is SUPERNATURAL. Further, the chefs argue their fame as chefs will not be confused with BCH or its By Chloe marks or restaurants.
I have not seen the NFL Agreement. It may have a non-compete, but it would likely have some sort of time limit rather than preclude her from working for life. Chloe asserts the agreement is terminated. Further, I would doubt that the NFL Agreement required her to change her name or not be able to truthfully state who she is in connection with a restaurant. The more likely prohibition would be to not use the name “CHLOE” for the restaurant. But, I have not seen the NFL Agreement, so there may be other arguments that BCH will have against the chef.
This will be an interesting case to follow. As there are allegations about a dip in quality at By Chloe, the judge and jury might want to sample food from the restaurants involved.
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