St. Pete restaurant Good Intentions gets Outback cease-and-desist over ‘Restaurant Week’ special

The steakhouse has a problem with the vegan restaurant’s messaging.

click to enlarge Good Intentions, located at 1900 1st Ave. S in St. Petersburg, Florida. - Photo via Good Intentions
Photo via Good Intentions
Good Intentions, located at 1900 1st Ave. S in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Tampa Bay Restaurant Week wraps after this weekend, and a lot of people have taken notice. Hell, one special made its voice heard all the way Down Under.

St. Petersburg vegan favorite Good Intentions' Restaurant Week offering is a three-course, $59.99, plant-based special that includes a decadent Juicy Marbles filet (complete with a loaded baked potato and pan-seared asparagus), salad, bread and butter. It also came with a “Blooming onion”—until earlier this week.

The intermezzo, if you will, is now referred to as an “Onion Blossom” after Bloomin’ Brands—the parent company of Outback Steakhouse—sent a cease-and-desist letter to Good Intentions.

“Your use of the term ‘Blooming Onion’ is in direct violation of the Company’s trademark rights, as it is confusingly similar in sight or sound with a registered mark, simply adding one letter. It has been widely held that similarity in sight of sound with a registered mark for a similar product constitutes trademark infringement.,” the letter reads.

Outback’s parent company also said that the “use of the mountain range horizon logo with the words ‘Good Intentions’ is also in direct violation of the Company’s trademark rights.”
click to enlarge The second course of Good Intentions' Tampa Bay Restaurant Week menu got extra special attention from down under. - Photo by Corrie Miserendino
Photo by Corrie Miserendino
The second course of Good Intentions' Tampa Bay Restaurant Week menu got extra special attention from down under.
Good Intentions—located at 1900 1st Ave. S in St. Pete—took the notice in stride.

“Wallaby darned! Our Restaurant Week special is so good and just right, the people right out-back took notice! Come and get it before it ceases and desists,” the restaurant wrote on social media.

The good time, and great meal, could not be roo-ined in the comment section either.

One commenter said of the trademark infringement onion, “I thought there were no rules, just right?,” alluding to Outback Steakhouse’s slogan. Another hoped it would be renamed the “Bussin’ Onion.”

Still, the special remains and is one of more than 60 offerings during Tampa Bay Restaurant Week where local restaurants team up with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay to bring new customers into the doors.

See all the specials, which end after June 23, below.

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Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief in August 2019. Past work can be seen at Suburban Apologist, Tampa Bay Times, Consequence of Sound and The...
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