Yahoo Finance -by Hayley Peterson, Business Insider
Starbucks is known for aggressively going after small businesses that appear to infringe on its trademark rights.
So it was no surprise that a tiny brewpub in Missouri got a cease-and-desist letter from the coffee chain after it started selling a beer called “Frappicino.”
But unlike other businesses that have quietly caved to the coffee giant’s demands, Jeff Britton, owner of Exit 6 Pub and Brewery in Cottleville, responded with a sarcastic letter and a $6 check, which he claimed was his total profit from selling three pints of the beer. He posted the letters to Facebook.
Britton addressed his response to a Starbucks attorney and “Mr Bucks” and repeatedly referred to the beer throughout as the “F Word” to avoid “risk of further lawsuits.”
“I would like for both [attorney Anessa] Owen Kramer and Mr Bucks to rest assured we meant no deception, confusion, or mistaking in the naming of the beer F Word,” Britton wrote. “We never thought that our beer drinking customers would have thought that the alcoholic beverage coming out of the tap would have actually been coffee from one of the many, many, many stores located a few blocks away. I guess that with there being a Starbucks on every corner of every block in every city that some people may think they could get a Starbucks at a local bar. So that was our mistake.”
Britton continued, “We also promise to stop production of our ‘Starbuck-McDonalds-Coca Cola-Marlboro Honey Lager’ for fear of further repercussions.”
He insisted that Starbucks apply his $6 check “towards the legal fees Ms Owen Kramer received for her efforts in nabbing Exit 6 in our dastardly F Word naming practices.”
“We realize Mr Bucks probably paid her more than Exit 6 made last year,” Britton added. “We just want to help a business like Starbucks. Us small business owners need to stick together.”
Riding on the publicity of the letters, Exit 6 is now selling an “F Word” beer.
Here’s the Starbucks letter:
Facebook/Exit 6 Pub and Brewery
Facebook/Exit 6 Pub and Brewery
Here’s Exit 6’s response to Starbucks’ cease-and-desist demands:
Facebook/Exit 6 Pub and Brewery
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/missouri-bar-gets-cease-desist-195615520.html
ad a boy…Frap this…
What a bunch of stinking tight-wads. A multi-billion dollar company that breaks the chops of a starving bar owner, and is also helping to advance the communist agenda here, most certainly does NOT deserve your patronage.
BOYCOTT STARBUCKS
BINGO….BOYCOTT!!!!!!!!!!
Starshmucks is already on the list of businesses that no American National should be doing business with. This just adds to the reasons why.
Starbucks, never been to one. Who the would want to sit amongst a bunch of yuppie, brown nosing, metrosexuals drinking their gay coffee? It’s almost as gay as tea and crumpets.
Im gonna name my next excrement after starbucks.
What name you gonna use Crappucinno, cuz I wouldn’t want to sue since my is call Crappicinno lol bunch of dumb selfish f#@ks imo.
change it to fratticuino and go on if just phonetically sounding the same is the prob here, the sound is different but hard to distinguish, that would hamper the effort to stop you from selling your craft beer.