After two years in business, Bodega has been slapped with a cease-and-desist.
The cult-favorite brunch spot in Denver’s neighborhood Sunnyside has changed its name to Odie B’s, after a Kansas City restaurant called La Bodega sent it a legal notice, according to a message that the restaurant, at 2651 W. 38th Ave., posted on Instagram Monday.
“It’s already hard enough to run restaurants and it’s tragic when other independent operators are out to get ya, too,” the restaurant wrote. “While change can suck and cause heartache, we have finally leaned into it. Even though we have happily been existing in Denver with several other bodegas, we would like to set ourselves apart and end all the confusion as we grow.”
Bodega is known for its highly craveable breakfast sandwiches, as well as its burritos and burgers (which landed on The Denver Post’s list of favorites). Owner Cliff Blauvelt grew up in Sunnyside and wanted to offer the neighborhood an easy and playful, rather than pretentious, spot for breakfast and lunch. Blauvelt plans to open a second location in RiNo this fall.
And it’s not the only business in Denver boasting the bodega moniker. There’s an international snack shop dubbed It’s a Bodega and a newly opened chopped cheese restaurant called Big Apple Bodega.
Meanwhile, La Bodega, which has been open since 1998, is a tapas restaurant located hundreds of miles away in Kansas City, something Odie B.’s pointed out online.
“We also found it ludacris (sic) that an independently owned restaurant 600 miles away wanted us to pay to use the word bodega, but hey, that’s life,” the post reads. “Odie B.’s is still a community-driven sandwich shop inspired by bodegas across the world. Odie B.’s is still rowdy. And Odie B.’s is absolutely for the people.”
Odie B’s will be the only change to Bodega’s usual operations.