A battle of the Big Boys is unfolding in Ohio between the retro burger brand’s two stand-alone factions.
Frisch’s Big Boy, the owner of the Big Boy brand in the Cincinnati area, is suing Michigan-based Big Boy Restaurant Group (BBRG), for allegedly planning to open Big Boy restaurants in former Frisch’s locations.
In the lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. district court in Ohio, Frisch’s claimed that BBRG would be committing trademark infringement by using the Big Boy brand within territory that has long belonged to Frisch’s.
On Friday, a judge granted a temporary restraining order barring BBRG from using the Big Boy name on those restaurants. This week, BBRG appeared to shift gears, opening two locations under the name of Dolly’s Burgers and Shakes instead. Dolly was the name of Big Boy’s girlfriend in promotional comic books produced by the chain.
The dispute stems from the unique history of the Big Boy brand. Founded in 1936 in California, Bob’s Big Boy would go on to become a national chain operating under different franchisees. In 2000, the predecessor of BBRG acquired the chain. But it made a deal with Frisch’s, one of the chain’s largest operators, that gave Frisch’s exclusive rights to the Big Boy trademark in its existing territories of Indiana, Kentucky and certain counties in Ohio and Tennessee. BBRG, meanwhile, would get precedence everywhere else.
Today, BBRG and Frisch’s are two entirely separate companies that operate the same brand, with similar menus and imagery. Both serve the signature Big Boy burger but topped with a different sauce, for instance, and both feature slightly different versions of the baby-faced Big Boy mascot.
A BBRG-owned Big Boy in Michigan. | Photo: Shutterstock
Frisch’s has fallen on hard times recently. In October, it was evicted as the operator of many of its Ohio locations by landlord NNN Reit over unpaid rent. In November, a pair of Frisch’s executives acquired what was left of the chain.
By the end of the year, NNN had initiated evictions at 64 Frisch’s restaurants and taken control of 33 of them, the landlord said during an earnings call in February.
NNN also said that it had re-leased 28 of the 33 restaurants to another operator. That operator was Big Boy Restaurant Group, which in February began posting job listings for the closed restaurants.
Frisch’s said in its lawsuit that the initial job postings suggested that BBRG planned to reopen the restaurants as Dolly’s. But those listings were later changed to indicate that the restaurants would be called Big Boy, which spurred Frisch’s to take action.
The company hired a private investigator to apply for one of the job openings. The investigator confirmed that BBRG planned to reopen the restaurants as Big Boys by early March, Frisch's said.
The court’s restraining order against BBRG was set to expire 14 days from March 7, at which point it will consider Frisch’s request for a preliminary injunction.
BBRG said that it intended to defend the brand in a statement last month.
The first Dolly’s, meanwhile, opened Monday, promising to offer “the familiar flavors its parent company is known for,” according to a statement from BBRG CEO Tamer Afr to local media outlets.
Dolly’s signage, uniforms and other branded items are still “in production,” Afr said, but the company wanted to get the restaurants open so employees could start working.
“These may not be ideal conditions for debuting a restaurant in a new market, but we're making the best of the situation,” he said.
And, in an apparent reference to the tartar sauce Frisch’s puts on its Big Boy burgers, he said, “contrary to what you may have heard, we know that the white sauce is the right sauce for our Signature Burgers in Cincinnati.”
Neither Frisch’s nor BBRG had responded to requests for comment as of publication time.
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