Panda Express accused SLO County restaurant of trademark infringement. Here’s why
Fast food giant Panda Express accused a Morro Bay restaurant of trademark infringement, forcing the local eatery to change its name.
Xiaohan Ding opened the eatery formerly known as Panda Panda Chinese Restaurant with her mom and business partner, Yanzhi Liu, at 810 Morro Bay Blvd. in April.
Six months later, the pair received an unsigned letter from Panda Express parent company Panda Restaurant Group threatening legal action unless the restaurant stopped using the word “panda” on its signage, website and advertising.
The letter, sent Oct. 25, charged Ding and Liu with infringing the corporation’s trademark registration for “specifically the word PANDA,” referring to that word as a registered Panda Express “mark.”
“We demand that you immediately cease and desist all use” of the word panda “or any mark that is confusingly similar to Panda Express,” the letter read.
Panda Restaurant Group also ordered the Morro Bay restaurant to “discard and/or destroy all materials using Panda Express marks or any variation thereof, and immediately retract all advertising materials that include any such marks, including but not limited to revising your website … signage for inside and outside.”
After consulting an attorney and trying to negotiate with Panda Restaurant Group’s lawyers, Ding and Liu realizing they couldn’t match the corporation’s legal clout.
The women own two Chinese restaurants — the former Panda Panda and China Red House in Lebec — while Panda Express operates more than 2,300 stores across the county, raking in $3 billion in sales, according to the Panda Restaurant Group website.
So Ding and Liu began the process of changing their restaurant’s name to Bamboo Bamboo Chinese Restaurant.
Temporarily, the name on the restaurant’s awning was abbreviated to read “Pan Pan,” a stopgap move which gave Ding and Liu time to order a new one and have it installed shortly before Christmas.
Has name change affected Morro Bay restaurant?
The restaurant’s name change hasn’t affected Ding’s business at all, she said.
In fact, on Christmas Day, Bamboo Bamboo had a constant flow of diners coming in.
Since the new sign was installed, some repeat customers have asked about the new name, Ding said, but they were just “making sure that we’re still here.”
The interior of the restaurant is the same.
Like Panda Panda, Bamboo Bamboo uses a BellaBot food delivery robot that talks to diners.
Manufactured by Chinese company Pudu Robotics, the interactive robot with the cute kitty face guides customers to their seats, drops off orders and helps clear tables.
The Panda Restaurant Group had not responded to several requests for comment via email and phone as of Jan. 11.
Other SLO County businesses forced to rename
Other San Luis Obispo County businesses have faced claims of trademark infringement through the decades.
In the 1980s, Gary and Helen Bunn had to rename the former Beefeater restaurant in Cambria after the Beefeater gin corporation launched a trademark challenge.
The restaurant, now dubbed The Sea Bear, enjoyed a long run until it eventually closed.
Aaron and Jennifer Wharton were forced to change the name of their small-batch brewery, Cambria Beer, in 2014 by Kendall-Jackson Estate Winery and Cambria Estate Winery in Santa Maria, which had trademarked any combination of the word Cambria and the implication of alcohol.
The Whartons opted to change their brewery’s name rather than be sued for copyright infringement.
The rebranded 927 Beer brewery operated a successful taproom at 821 Cornwall St. for a decade before being forced to leave that location by new building owners.
Although the business offered beer for sale at Cambria Pub & Steakhouse starting in September, that arrangement has ended and the Wharton family’s brewing company has closed.
This story was originally published January 13, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
