SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The owners of a popular North Park eatery had quite a shock this year when In-N-Out sent them a cease-and-desist letter over the names for two of their dishes.
Fairplay, a laidback sports bar located on 30th Street, shared a marked-up version of the legal notice on Instagram Wednesday, in honor of National Cheeseburger Day.
The letter was contesting two of their menu items that bore identical names to trademarked items available at In-N-Out, “Animal Fries” and the “Double Double.”
One of the restaurant’s owners, Shane Gerde, told FOX 5/KUSI on Thursday that they picked the names for dishes on their menu that were “largely inspired” by those available at the fast-food chain, albeit with their own twists.
“We were just going for something to give guests an idea of what they were getting without much of a description and those things are hallmarks of Southern California,” he explained. “It was working out well, they understood the correlation between the two items.”