This might be a bit too personal and private to write about.
I’m still going to write about it. I feel that writing about it (maybe) will bring me some ideas, or just get it off my chest.
Back in 2017 I came up with the name I❤️🍟 ( I Love Frys ) and immediately fell in love with it. I wanted to use emojis, but learned that in official government documents I couldn’t. So I used emojis whenever I could and just spelled it out when I absolutely needed to.
So I reached out to a lawyer. A friend of the family that has handled a lot of our “law” stuff over the years. In fact the guy saved my ass when I was a teenager about to get my license suspended. I had a heavy foot and got too many speeding tickets.
In traffic court, waiting for my turn, I saw him representing a different client of his. He saw me and waived me over. We talked about why I was there and that I should have called him. He told me to stay near him and that he’ll help me out. He did. Saved my license. So I was, and will be, forever grateful for that.
Fast forward to adulthood and real life stuff. I have a brand I need to protect so I go to Super Lawyer Man to save the day and file my brand name I LOVE FRYS with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, (USPTO.)
He never did file that paper and some other french fry place trademarked their name that is so similar to I Love Frys that I can no longer use I Love Frys 😭.
This all happened in the ‘ol pandemic days of the early 20’s.
(I like to say it like that. Reminds me of the old timers I remember from being a kid. I guess I’m an old timer now.)
Anyway, I lost the trademark protection to use I Love Frys as a brand name. That’s unfortunate for many reasons, but mainly because I really fell in love with the name, the logo, and the way it looks and sounds when we say it.
Replacing the brand name can be easy sure, “just give it a name and move on” is what I’ve been told, but I can’t just ignore the fact that I thought the name was perfect. How am I supposed to replace something that was perfect?!?! It’s not that easy. I’ve been trying to rebrand for 3 years now.
In fact, I have pages and pages of names. Frys Galore, Fry King, Oh My Frys, and Frys Frys Frys are just a small sample of the ridiculousness rebranding has been.
So why am I writing about this then?
I reached out to several professional branding people. The business of branding is a wild one. You can pay someone for a arbitrary list of names. The fees can range from $3,000 to the largest fee we saw being $150,000!!!!
I don’t have either one of those figures to throw at rebranding.
So here I am writing about my frustrations with rebranding.
Why even rebrand?
I kind of have to.
I mean, if I want to stay put in this hidden corner of Villa Park I can keep my name. There is a precedence here. Burger King went through a similar thing.
Back in the day there were two different people that opened up a burger joint, both naming it Burger King. One was from Miami, FL while the other was in central Illinois. The Burger King in central Illinois is a mom & pop burger shop while the other is the Burger Kink Corp. that we all know. The result of litigation was that the mom & pop BK can operate with a 25 mile radius of protection. Meaning that BK Corp. cannot open one of their BK’s in that circle.
So I can keep my little store while the place that has the trademark can operate anywhere else.
And let’s be honest… the Villa Park restaurant is miles better. We have less followers on social media, but we don’t buy our followers we earn them through engagement and you see that engagement in real time on social media platforms. Where as the restaurant with tens of thousands of followers do not have much engagement.
Also…. and maybe I’m alone here, but they use hotdog wieners and call them sausages 🤦♂️ and it drives me crazy.
Ok ok ok I’ll move on. I just had to bring that up. Wieners are not sausages, but maybe that’s just a Chicago area thing.
Here I am.
Waiting on a name to just jump out at me.
Why tho?
So we can grow. I want to grow this little fry shop. I think it’s a good business. We merge fresh market food & produce with a fast food business model.
Every day we go to the market and pick our favorite tomatoes, the freshest limes, lively cilantro, and beautiful onions!! (so beautiful)
We take all that market fresh produce, as well as our proteins from the purveyors of the highest quality, and we add that to our french frys in all the ways you want.
I feel that this needs to be replicated so we are preparing for a franchise business model.
Before we can move on with that we need a new brand.
I Love Frys will always have a place in my heart, and if the opportunity to recover & protect I Love Frys ever presents itself in the future I will jump at the bit, but I have to be realistic in thinking that the opportunity may never come. I❤️🍟 is like a child of mine. I created it. Albeit in a very different way, but nevertheless I created it. Letting it go is not easy, but I have to if I want to keep this good thing going.
In a world of the corporate bottom line, I feel that integrity still has a place. We are trying to build that place.
Bear with us. We’ll get to the end of this, and when we do we hope that those who have visited us will remember us as the original French Fry joint.
Ok, its 6am and my rant is jsut about finished.
Thank you for reading this.