tavola
tavola
(Image credit: tavola)

Francis Ford Coppola is suing the Tavola Italian Kitchen restaurant in Novato, California for trademark infringement over the use of the word 'Tavola'.

Trustees of the Coppola family, which owns restaurants Zoetrope in San Francisco and Rustic in Sonoma County, say that ‘a tavola’, meaning ‘to the table’, a casual dining experience with no menus, is a hallmark of the restaurants.

The Coppola Family Trust has registered a US trademark for the phrase ‘a tavola’ upon which the lawsuit is based.

Coppola attorney Giselle Galper wrote to Tavola owners, father and son team Anthony and Jon Paul Pirraglia, to say that customers will be misled into believing their restaurant is connected with Coppola or his Sonoma winery, Francis Ford Coppola Winery.

The lawsuit was filed on 2 April.

According to local website Novato Patch, Jon Paul Pirraglia has said that he believes the name ‘creates no actual conflict with the rights asserted by the Coppola family in their recently filed lawsuit’ and that they have ‘put considerable effort into explaining this to the Coppola family in order to achieve a resolution of the dispute without resort to litigation.”

The case is being presided over by US Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu in California’s Northern District Court.

[Image: novato.patch.com]

Written by David Furer

David Furer
David Furer
Decanter Magazine, Wine Writer & Sommelier

David Furer is a Californian wine writer, educator, consultant and speaker, who has worked for over 20 years in the wine trade. He has appeared in publications such as Decanter, Wine Business Monthly in the US and SommelierS Int’l in France. He formerly served on the Circle of Wine Writers’ executive committee and is a sommelier with accreditation from the Court of Master Sommeliers. In his book, Wine Places, he collaborates with photographer Charles O’Rear to capture some of the world’s vineyards, wineries and winemakers.