Have you had your website or “logo”:http://www.simplebits.com/notebook/2007/04/01/simplefools.html ripped off before? Kinda ticks you off, right? Well, imagine having more or less everything about your burger franchise, down to the colours and the menus, copied. A “local burger place”:http://www.ksl.com/?sid=1282451&nid=148 is drumming up huge business because they are “just like In&Out.”
Chadder’s of American Fork, UT, is blowing away its competition simply by coming into the game wearing someone else’s uniform. If you live in Utah and are (as most people tend to be) familiar with In&Out–most Utahns have some sort of relative/friend/etc in California, Nevada or Arizona–you’ve probably had the following conversation:
Person 1: “Yeah, we went to Vegas this past weekend…”
Person 2: “Dude, you hit In&Out?”
Person 1: “Of course! I love In&Out!”
Person 2: “I wish they’d build one here!”
Person 1: “Me too! It would make so much money!”
It’s easy to see where the inspiration light bulb switched on and someone said “Well, if they won’t build it and make heaps of cash, I will…” I love In&Out, and wish they were in my state, but this is ridiculous. If Chadder’s were to open a fast food business, have the same or similar menu, and promise the same fresh food and practices, of course I would have no problem… but to wholesale up and steal everything about another place, including their building shape and colour scheme–even the cardboard trays for large orders(==!!==)–is just unpardonable. At very least they stopped short of stealing the logo and using a derivative name.
And I thought LogoWorks was the only copycat in Utah County…
I heard that Chadder’s was started by one of the relatives of the In-N-Out owners. I chalked it up to Utah Rumor Mill, but wanted to know if there was any truth to it.