Taco Tuesday: Taco Bell wins trademark battle with Taco John’s

Officials with the fast-food chain Taco John’s on Tuesday announced that the company is halting its fight to keep the trademark for “Taco Tuesday” amid a challenge from Taco Bell.

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In May, Taco Bell filed a petition with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office aiming to cancel the trademark Taco John’s has held since 1989 in all states except New Jersey. The company argued that “Taco Tuesday” has become a common phrase and that consumers don’t specifically associate it with Taco John’s.

On Tuesday, Taco John’s announced that it was abandoning its trademark fight.

“We’ve always prided ourselves on being the home of Taco Tuesday, but paying millions of dollars to lawyers to defend our mark just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do,” Taco John’s CEO Jim Creel said in a statement.

The Cheyenne, Wyoming-based chain will instead donate $40,000 — amounting to $100 for each of the company’s locations — to an organization that supports restaurant workers with children, Creel said. He challenged Taco Bell to do the same.

In New Jersey, Gregory’s Restaurant & Bar in Somers Point has the trademark for “Taco Tuesday,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Court records showed that Taco Bell also challenged the company’s trademark in May. The restaurant’s co-owner, Gregory Gregory, told Reuters that he was “shocked” to hear that Taco John’s was giving up its trademark so soon and said that he did not plan to abandon the company’s trademark.

A Taco John’s employee in St. Paul, Minnesota, first advertised taco specials as “Taco Twosday” on a Tuesday in 1979, according to the Journal. The concept spread to other company locations in the 1980s, the newspaper reported.

Taco John’s operates about 400 restaurants in 21 states, including Ohio, Washington and Massachusetts. Taco Bell has more than 7,000 locations nationwide.