After two years in business, Bodega has been slapped with a cease-and-desist.
The cult-favorite brunch spot in Denver’s neighborhood Sunnyside has changed its name to Odie B’s, after a Kansas City restaurant called La Bodega sent it a legal notice, Bodega owner Cliff Blauvelt told The Denver Post.
“It’s just one of those things, you get it in the mail, you look at it, your heart drops and breaks, and you don’t know what to do,” Blauvelt said.
Bodega, located at 2651 W 38th Ave. in Sunnyside, got the letter a couple of months ago from La Bodega, a tapas restaurant that’s been open since 1998 and located hundreds of miles away in Kansas City, something now-Odie B’s pointed out online. The Kansas City spot has had the “bodega” moniker trademarked for the last 26 years and was seeking a percentage of sales if Blauvelt decided to keep his original name, he said. After asking a couple of lawyers, Blauvelt realized he couldn’t win this, and ultimately decided a rebrand was best.
“I put my own home up for collateral to open this restaurant for a loan, so I can’t pay anyone a percentage of sales to use a word,” he said.
Bodega is known for its highly craveable breakfast sandwiches, as well as its burritos and burgers (which landed on The Denver Post’s list of favorites). Blauvelt grew up in Sunnyside and wanted to offer the neighborhood an easy and playful, rather than pretentious, spot for breakfast and lunch. Blauvelt plans to open a second location in RiNo this fall.
And it’s not the only business in Denver sporting the bodega name. There’s an international snack shop dubbed It’s a Bodega and a newly opened chopped cheese restaurant called Big Apple Bodega.
“It’s already hard enough to run restaurants and it’s tragic when other independent operators are out to get ya, too,” Odie B’s wrote on Instagram. “While change can suck and cause heartache, we have finally leaned into it. Even though we have happily been existing in Denver with several other bodegas, we would like to set ourselves apart and end all the confusion as we grow.”
Odie B’s is a nod to the golden age of hip-hop and one of Blauvelt’s favorite groups Wu-Tang Clan. It also stands for Old Denver Bodega (ODB), and Blauvelt made sure it stood alone in the United States Patent and Trademark database. He plans to quickly trademark the name hereafter, “a lesson learned,” he said.
The restaurant has painted a new sign, redone its menus and updated all of its socials, website and marketing materials — a rebrand that Blauvelt said cost “close to $10,00 for everything to get buttoned up.”
Blauvelt attributes the brunch spot’s rising success and viral moments on TikTok and Instagram to La Bodega’s interest in the Denver restaurant.
“We also found it ludacris (sic) that an independently owned restaurant 600 miles away wanted us to pay to use the word bodega, but hey, that’s life,” the post reads. “Odie B.’s is still a community-driven sandwich shop inspired by bodegas across the world. Odie B.’s is still rowdy. And Odie B.’s is absolutely for the people.”
Blauvelt tried to reach an agreement with La Bodega, staying up all night researching different ways to secure his original brand, but “it’s just business, I can’t take it personally,” he said. Now that it’s all been cleared up, “I need four days just to sleep,” Blauvelt added.
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