Chef Jose Andres has fired back at a $10 million breach-of-contract lawsuit filed against his ThinkFoodGroup by real-estate mogul Donald Trump, with his restaurant company calling the suit “unsurprising and without merit.”
Trump is pursuing legal action against Andres for backing out of a deal for a flagship restaurant in Trump’s planned Washington, D.C., luxury hotel. The lawsuit was filed Friday in D.C. federal court against ThinkFoodGroup and an affiliate company, Topo Atrio LLC, The Washington Post reported.
“Simply put, Mr. Trump's comments made ThinkFoodGroup's participation in this project impossible and constituted a breach which the landlord, Trump Old Post Office LLC, refused to remedy,” ThinkFoodGroup said in a statement. “And despite our attempts to negotiate an amicable resolution, we were ultimately forced to terminate the lease."
Andres, a Spanish immigrant and naturalized American citizen, nixed the restaurant deal in July after Trump made disparaging comments about Hispanic immigrants. More than 450 customers signed a petition urging Andres to cut ties with Trump, and he did, citing that “more than half of (his) team is Hispanic.”
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