Stick a fork in it — nobody gets to be “Patsy’s.”
A Manhattan appeals court gave four stars this morning to the recipe a judge cooked up to end a long-simmering dispute between two famed Italian eateries that share the same name.
Citing “years of arguments that need to come to an end,” the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that neither Patsy’s Italian Restaurant in Midtown nor Patsy’s Pizzeria in East Harlem could stake a claim to the one-word moniker.
The unanimous ruling notes that neither side wanted that option on the menu, “only because it represented a compromise between their respective positions, an anathema to both.”
“Having allowed the consumer confusion to develop, no party can now complain about the district court’s attempt to minimize the confusion,” Judge Ralph Winter wrote for the three-judge panel.
The appeals court also said it didn’t want to give Brooklyn federal Magistrate Judge Ramon Reyes Jr. another taste of the case he presided over in 2008.
“We are completely confident that a remand would be unilluminating, delay the termination of this litigation needlessly, and merely lead to more fruitless, overlitigated proceedings,” Winter wrote.
After a jury found that a Long Island franchise of Patsy’s Pizzeria was trading on the name of Patsy’s Italian Restaurant — a favorite haunt of the late Frank Sinatra — Reyes ordered it to post a door sign saying the two weren’t affiliated.
He also issued an injunction barring either eatery from using just the name “Patsy’s.”
A lawyer for Patsy’s Pizzeria — which claims it was the first to sell pizza by the slice — said: “The fight over the right to expand Patsy’s Pizzeria started this case and the pizzeria is grateful for the court’s decision.”
“This win permits both parties to expand as long as they respect each other’s rights,” said lawyer Paul Grandinetti, who added: “At trial, a tape of Frank Sinatra said Patsy’s Pizzeria has the best pizza in the world — including Italy.”
A lawyer for Patsy’s Italian Restaurant didn’t immediately respond.