Comments on: Big Trouble Over Huge Sandwich

By: CHICAGO CARLESS

CHICAGO CARLESS — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:52:53 +0000

Scraping on State Street: A Year of Macy’s

(Photo: “It’s that ABC news van again…”.) It’s generally not a good sign when the ABC news van is parked in front of your establishment in the middle of the business day. So it was on Monday, as I…

By: Nuri

Nuri — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 20:26:19 +0000

Last month, for my 26th birthday, my friend and I had lunch at Eleven City Diner — while I had the corned beef sandwich; my friend ate the Marshall Field’s sandwich, and he felt the same way: much too dry. He also didn’t understand what “open faced” meant. Apparently, in his mind, he thought one had to “open” his own face to get such a large sandwich into his mouth.

I totally reccomend the kreplach, but the matzoh balls were lacking. Egg cream was quite nice too.

If they change the name, maybe just calling it a “Chicago Marshall’s” might be displaced enough of a name to not cause problems with corporate legal.

By: Mike Doyle

Mike Doyle — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 20:41:38 +0000

I grew up on egg creams, myself. Every weekend I’d ask my mom to take me down to the then-faded (and now long-gone) Bernieland, an old-school soda fountain up Kew Gardens Road in Queens, for an egg cream. Of course, I never actually said “Bernieland” because, for whatever reason, I never heard anyone refer to the place by anything other than “Dirty Bernie’s”. I have no idea why and at this point I think Id be afraid to learn the reason.

As I learned last Friday, phosphates are way better, anyway

By: Chad

Chad — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 19:21:30 +0000

Macy’s is…okay. Not great, but okay. If you spend enough money there they’ll send you an invitation to a private fashion show on a closed floor with live models, a live DJ, and lots of free cocktails. At least that’s what they do here in SF. I’m really looking forward to the Bloomingdale’s opening in a few weeks, though.

At any rate, those chocolate phosphates sound really good…I haven’t had one of those since I was a kid at the old soda fountain at the now-gone pharmacy at the end of my street.

By: Mike Doyle

Mike Doyle — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 14:25:34 +0000

This behavior by Federated really strikes me as something that would be more appropriate for a New York City business environment. You know: shoot first; ask questions later. Brash and ballsy are fine in Chicago, but you’ve got to communicate that intent in a much more soft-pedaled manner if you really want to get your way. I do think Federated will eventually get over this whole “we know what’s good for you” attitude about Chicago, though. If the popularity of my innocent post from Wednesday proves anything, it’s that Chicago is watching–closely.

At least Federated now knows how closely.

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 23:57:17 +0000

Mike,
My favorite part about the Federated cease-and-desist letter is how they are acting “to protect (their) trademark.” Protect it how? They are throwing it away! By pulling this stunt against a business who doesn’t operate in their line of business (and thus whose use would likely not endanger their trademark), they are not making a good first impression. If they are so concerned about their rights, then why not just discreetly offer to license the name for that limited purpose?

Of course, should we expect anything less from the company that labeled a line of underwear “I. Magnin” to “protect” the name from being used by a group of private equity investors who wanted to start a store using the long-since-mothballed name?