Legal counsel for Malibu Kitchen has sent a cease and desist letter to Soho House London: “You have intentionally stolen the Malibu Kitchen trademark which is famous, and has been in use for almost 20 years.”
The operators of Soho House—part of the same chain that opened a location here in Malibu—recently began operating a restaurant in the Ned Hotel in London, known as Malibu Kitchen.
Now, the local Malibu Kitchen’s owners, which include Whoopi Goldberg, Barbra Streisand, Mel Gibson and John Mellencamp, have hired Beverly Hills attorney Perry C. Wander, who says Soho House has violated their “intellectual property rights.”
“The former caterer Nick Jones who built Soho House into a global empire of private members clubs and restaurants opened Malibu Kitchen restaurant in London. Unfortunately, this restaurant already exists in Malibu, one mile from the Soho house that he opened a year ago,” Wander wrote in an email to The Malibu Times.