DBGB Kitchen & Bar is named for it's owner and head chef, Daniel Boulud. The name is also a nod to the legendary NYC punk rock club, CBGB. Duke's, on the other hand, is named after owner Patrick Duquin's brother Peter "Duke" Duquin, who tragically passed away in 2009. Right off the bat, it is made clear that both names stand for different things. I'm not sure how CBGB feels about an uptight East Village restaurant adopting it's name for it's own purposes, but I do know that it's decidedly un-punk rock.
How then, do you sue a business because they happen to have the same initials? My initials are BPG, what would happen if the Big Picture Group decided one day that I wasn't allowed to use my own name to identify myself? Granted, I'm not a business, but in order to bring a lawsuit for this reason, you have to prove the likelihood of consumer confusion. It would be a tragic thing if a hip NYC couple was out on the town, in the mood for a Frenchie Burger, and suddenly took a wrong turn and wound up 8 hours away in the Allentown district of Buffalo, NY.
If that couple existed, however, they might have made the best mistake of their lives. Anyone who fights the good fight in this city's music scene knows that DBGB's has been an indispensable part of the city's cultural growth. You can't read one of James Wild's Drum Machine Reports without coming across a reference to a fun event happening there. Duquin took the former Staples and converted it from my grandmother's living room decor to a classy, yet approachable night club and restaurant. Even other business owners in Allentown can't resist stopping in for their smoked barbecue chicken wings. It's disgusting to think that Boulud's Kitchen & Bar, a business that itself stole it's name from another business would have the audacity to go after someone else with the same accusation. Duke's name is derived from a place of remembrance and respect, something Boulud doesn't share.
Those are smoked BBQ wings are irresistible! You hit it on the head Brian! Oh, the article is good too....
DBGB has only been around for a short period but it has already gained a widespread reputation of one of the best places to catch local acts, all sorts of local music, including the best Electronic Dance Music that buffalo has to offer. Watching the Sabres game on their huge TV while eating some insanely good 25 cent wings is one of the cheapest nights out I have had in a long time. Do you really think this other place can top something like that. If they are gonna be a bar and grill they should be one, otherwise stop trying to feed off of other peoples success, this other place is in NYC, meaning if you were doing things right people wouldnt get the two confused, they would know you over our city's hotspot any day. So please, this is just first grade tactics, dont feed gluttons greed, and keep up the good work Dukes... Oh and to the writer of this article, tho I agree with everything you say, the one thing I have to point out is people do drugs and get old, two things which produce strange and unexplicable events caused by said people... read this article and tell me you wouldnt put driving 8 hours because the GPS says so past some of these old folks http://www.faniq.com/poll_results.php?poll_id=250205&rnum= then do some research on the things people have done while under the effects of LSD...