Comments

Give me a break. If Danny wanted to steal from Boulud, he would have called it ‘db’s Modern Bistro’. He wasn’t trying to fool anyone. It’s not like he called it Kennedy Fried Chicken. He used his own initials. This is so silly.

Posted by Foresthills72
on June 1st, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Regardless of how similar they are (they aren’t) it’s common enough to have the d and b next to each other that a bar in the West Village has it too. The primary issue is whether there is brand confusion. And there is not. No one goes to DB thinking it’s a Boulud wing. And frankly, even if they did, the food’s good enough that they would not think less fovorably of the Boulud brand. Finally, there is no competition. No one goes to Danny Brown INSTEAD OF a Boulud restaurant. No one chooses between the two. Boulud loses no money, suffers no brand diminishment, there is no confusion. All this will do is, as you say, increase awareness for the restaurants and the area. And that’s fine with me.

Posted by Jon Parker
on June 1st, 2007 at 7:40 pm
When I first saw the FH db, I actually wondered — “hmm, can this be a Daniel Boulud joint”. I quickly reasoned and realized Boulud wouldn’t open a place out here but the thought did cross my mind. Danny Brown clearly is making a play on the lower case initials in his name, ala Boulud. I think this case has some legs to it.

Posted by Dudely
on June 3rd, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Was there for a pretty early dinner this past Saturday at around 7pm for my first visit to db and they were turning away couples left and right that didn’t have a reservation (I called 15 minutes before I headed over and had no problem). You can tell there are already a good number of regulars as the hostess was welcoming familiar faces, but looked sincerely apologetic when sending people off. She did seat one couple and said up front that they will need that table in one hour, which was nice enough so they knew they were going to get the rush job

My wife and I both enjoyed our meals and there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been mentioned…overall a very positive experience. I just wonder what the 8-10pm crowd looks like as we seem to have been at the low end of the age range at that time. Not the “hip, young” crowd I was expecting, although I’m not really much of a “scene” person so I didn’t care either way.

On the drive back, I stopped at my nemesis, Martha, to see what the black and white cookie situation was like. If anyone’s been reading my other posts, you can guess where that one went.

Posted by LarryB
on June 4th, 2007 at 11:40 am
The truth is that I’m sure that Daniel Boulud is as thoroughly unenthused about this whole thing as Danny Brown is. The problem is that once upon a time, Daniel Boulud spent good money to hire an attorney to register his trademark for him. Now, if he fails to defend that trademark, he will effectively be throwing away his rights. If you allow third-parties to infringe upon your trademark, it weakens your rights. Daniel Boulud is only doing this because his attorney is probably telling him that if he doesn’t do something about db Wine Bar and Bistro, he can kiss his rights goodbye. Daniel Boulud may only have the one db Bistro Moderne right now, but he may be planning to start a whole chain of db Bistro Modernes. He might start a line of db brand merchandise sold out of swanky food shops everywhere, who knows?

Danny Brown will be unhappy. He will have to change his signage, business cards, menus, stationary, whatever. Daniel Boulud will also be unhappy. He has to pay his expensive trademark attorney to see that this thing is handled correctly. The only one doing well here, is the trademark attorney, but before we all cut loose with the “@!$#ing attorney!” routines, let’s just remember that he’s just doing his job, protecting his client’s rights under our system of law.

Posted by Corgi
on June 5th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
[…] story so far: Absentee superchef Daniel Boulud threatens Forest Hills’ Danny Brown with a lawsuit for using their mutual initials in the signage of his restaurant, then just a month later […]

Posted by Queens Central » CB to DB: Hands off our trademark
on July 18th, 2007 at 12:25 am

Boulud vs. Brown in DB Smackdown

Posted by Steve on Friday, June 1st, 2007

Via A Forest Hills Life: According to no less than New York Times culinary god Frank Bruni, hotshot superchef Daniel Boulud has initiated a trademark war with none other than Forest Hills’ own Danny Brown over their mutual use of a logo with the lowercase letters “db.” Boulud’s version, of course, came first, though the two logos honestly look nothing alike. Boulud’s jerky lawyer has some real assholish things to say about poor Danny, the best thing to happen to the Central Queens restaurant world since Lidia Bastianich:

He also said of Mr. Brown’s restaurant: “It isn’t of the same caliber as Daniel Boulud, and that’s actually a problem. If someone thinks that’s associated with Daniel Boulud, then that tends to tarnish a brand.”

“Imagine if a shop opens in Queens called Saks, a retail store called Saks that sells much lower-rent stuff,” he said. “Is it possible someone will think it’s related to Saks? Yeah. Is it possible that people will think Saks has opened a lower-end Wal-Mart-type store? Sure.”

Boulud is one of the most respected chefs in New York, so of course, very few restaurants are actually “of the same caliber.” But these comments strongly imply that Danny Brown is your typical Queens pasta mill, with mediocre buffet nights once a week and a terrible piano player struggling through Celine Dion covers. I’m grateful to Bruni for bringing this story to the major media, but his admittedly balanced and extensive coverage also contains some of the same old anti-Queens snobbery, with his “Why on earth would the mighty Daniel Boulud concern himself with anything in some jerkwater burg?” attitude.

Of course, as I bet Bruni himself would acknowledge if he could bring himself to cross the 59th Street Bridge, Danny Brown is a terrific restaurant run by a terrific restaurateur, hardly Wal-Mart to Boulud’s Saks and easily worthy of hanging with your better Manhattan bistros. Critic after critic after critic has acknowledged this — I haven’t seen a review yet that’s anything less than glowing. Yet, of course, that does stop NYT commenters from saying things like, “It makes one wonder whether Brown’s lack of originality in naming his restaurant is an indication of a lack of originality in his dishes.”

There is, of course, a silver lining to this story: Frank Bruni is writing about Danny Brown, and there’s no such thing as bad publicity, especially not when Boulud looks like the monster, picking on a humble Queens guy just trying to spruce up his neighborhood. One NYT commenter put it best: “I would never have made the trek to Queens to eat at Mr. Brown’s restaurant rather than one of Mr. Boulud’s. Now, however, perhaps I will…” Let’s hope more people are similarly enticed. They won’t be disappointed.

And if you choose to eat at Danny Brown instead of Daniel Boulud, you actually might find DB behind the stove rather than just on the sign. Zing!