A Recipe for Success

 In the food and beverage business, “buzz” is a valuable commodity that can make your restaurant, bar, or brewery the place to be.   Whether it is introducing a new menu that capitalizes on the poke bowl trend or publishing a cookbook with the “secret” recipes of your accomplished chef, restaurateurs are experts at coming up with creative ideas to generate buzz for their establishments.  Once this buzz is generated, though, how can you stop the new restaurant in town from hiring away your sous chef and stealing your chef’s “secret recipes” in the process? An establishment’s intellectual property – the very ideas that generate buzz for your establishment – is difficult to value, but crucial to protect.  Luckily, the law provides protection.  The nature and scope of the protection afforded, though, will hinge largely on the steps the restaurant, bar, or brewery take to protect itself.  

For a restaurant with a valuable idea it wants to protect…