Taco Chon Responds to Trademark Infringement Lawsuit

(KNSI) — The owner of a local Mexican fast-casual restaurant is responding to a trademark infringement lawsuit filed against them by a national chain.

Juan Ramos Gutierrez is a co-owner of Taco Chon in St. Cloud. Taco John’s has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court saying Taco Chon is cashing in by using a name that’s too similar to theirs.

Gutierrez says the name comes from the taco shop he and his parents had in Mexico. “It was kind of popular back in that time. And then I moved here, and I had a dream. I had a dream about opening a taco store in the United States. Especially Minnesota. I’ve been living here for about 23 years. We decided to open a taco place and we named it Taco Chon because [of] the memories back in time in Mexico.”

He said there was no issue two and a half years ago when they opened their first store in Burnsville, and he “never thought about Taco Johns. To be honest, I’ve never been there. I saw the names because I drive by there, but I never thought it was going to be related because we are Taco Chon, not Taco John’s, you know? I’ve never been there. I don’t know their menu.”

Two months ago, he said a representative from Taco John’s contacted him and said he needed to stop using their name. Gutierrez said he wasn’t using their name. He said the representative was arguing with him and threatened that if he didn’t stop using the Taco Chon name, “We’re going to shut your place down.”

He was upset by the threats and told them to do whatever they had to do, adding, “If you have to sue our place, just go ahead and do it. I’m not going to change our name because you call me and say, ‘hey, you have to change your name.'”

Gutierrez says Taco John’s is being a bully “I don’t know how a big company, like they say they are, cares about two little stores. You know? It feels bad. It’s a dream. You come with a dream, you want to live the dream. And then someone wants to stop your dream, you know? And it feels bad, because this is the land of dreaming, you know? A lot of people come to United States of America, because you have a dream. And then just some day, some person or company comes in wants you to stop dreaming, it feels bad.”

He says he has gotten quite a bit of community support for Taco Chon and wanted to thank the customers for backing him up.

Gutierrez has vowed to fight the lawsuit. “I have 60 days to answer this, and we’re going to fight. Even if we don’t maybe have the money to pay for lawyers or anything, but we’re going look for a way to solve this. We’re going to fight for it, and when we say fight, we mean fighting for a dream, not for a name.”

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