In-N-Out sends cease-and-desist to popular North Park bar

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The owners of a popular North Park eatery had quite a shock this year when In-N-Out sent them a cease-and-desist letter over the names for two of their dishes.

Fairplay, a laidback sports bar located on 30th Street, shared a marked-up version of the legal notice on Instagram Wednesday, in honor of National Cheeseburger Day.

The letter was contesting two of their menu items that bore identical names to trademarked items available at In-N-Out, “Animal Fries” and the “Double Double.”

One of the restaurant’s owners, Shane Gerde, told FOX 5/KUSI on Thursday that they picked the names for dishes on their menu that were “largely inspired” by those available at the fast-food chain, albeit with their own twists.

“We were just going for something to give guests an idea of what they were getting without much of a description and those things are hallmarks of Southern California,” he explained. “It was working out well, they understood the correlation between the two items.”

Their version of the “Animal Fries” consists of nacho-style cheese and a different special sauce, topped off with the caramelized onions characteristic of the In-N-Out secret menu item.

Fairplay’s “Double Double,” which similarly has two patties and cheese slices, deviates from the In-N-Out version with their unique special sauce and a brioche bun. Although Gerde said they would never use tomato on their burger like In-N-Out does.

“They’re awesome dishes. It’s just a pumped up variation of what you might have done at a drive-thru restaurant, but instead you get to enjoy it in an atmosphere that’s a local neighborhood spot,” he said.

Although after receiving the cease-and-desist earlier this year over the trademark violations, Fairplay promptly changed the names of these two menu items to parodies of their inspiration: the “Secret Menu Fries” and “Burger Burger.”

While natural to assume that no one really wants to be on the receiving end of a cease-and-desist, for Gerde, that really was not the case.

“It was just nice to be recognized, quite honestly. To show up on somebody’s radar like that, it’s pretty cool,” Gerde said. “We couldn’t have gotten a cease-and-desist from anybody better than In-N-Out. We were stoked to be recognized and happy to change the names.”

“I mean they’ve got a brand to protect, just like anybody else. It was surprising because we’re kind of a small operation, but for us to be picked out it let us know that we must be doing something right, which is kind of rad,” he continued.

Despite being in the game of serving up beef, Gerde mentioned there’s no animosity between Fairplay and In-N-Out: “It was a great experience for us to interact with them, they were super nice about everything.”

He even encourages San Diegans who want to try their iterations of the classic In-N-Out items to do a little compare and contrast with the originals.

“We’ve found that we get a lot of people that are like ‘Oh, I like it better than’ — it’s all an issue of preference,” he said. “As for us, we still go to In-N-Out, we still love it.”

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News.