Hospitality, Food and Beverage Industry Law

Buchalter has decades of experience counseling businesses in the hospitality, food and beverage and restaurant industries. We represent publicly and privately held international and national restaurant chains, stand-alone restaurants, hotel chains and hotel management companies, hotel renovation firms, franchises, fast food chains, food and beverage companies, resorts and spas, golf courses, stadiums, and investors, and lenders in the hospitality and restaurant sectors. We understand the needs and challenges of the restaurant and hospitality industries and counsel clients on every aspect of their business.

Our areas of expertise include:

Corporate: Our corporate attorneys handle the full range of corporate matters for our restaurant and hospitality clients, including financing transactions, joint venture agreements, licensing, recapitalizations, mergers and acquisitions, securities transactions, and tax matters.

Intellectual Property: Our intellectual property attorneys are experts in the issues facing restaurants and hospitality businesses and routinely protect and enforce corporate brands domestically and globally.  We handle issues involving trademark clearance, prosecution and enforcement, copyright, trade dress, trade secrets, licensing, design protection, and website privacy policies and terms of use.

Labor and Employment: Our labor and employment attorneys are leaders in the hospitality and restaurant industries, representing employers in collective and class actions, discrimination and retaliation complaints, whistle-blower cases, trade secret theft and unfair competition litigation, and wage and hour cases. We routinely counsel employers on compliance with wage and hour law, terminations and discipline, unionization and collective bargaining, lay-offs, leaves of absence, OSHA compliance, reductions in force, drug testing, and risk management.

Litigation: Our litigators represent hospitality and restaurant clients in commercial, consumer, employment and class action lawsuits, including intellectual property and trade secret disputes, lease disputes, contract disputes, injunctions, vendor disputes, ADA suits, and construction disputes.

Real Estate: Our real estate group handles commercial leases, acquisition and sales, development issues, zoning, land use, environmental issues, and tax-driven deals.

Representative Matters:

• Act as General Counsel for S&E Gourmet Cuts, which does business as Country Archer Beef Jerky, as well as for a 14-property hotel chain.
• Negotiated real estate and construction contracts and performed due diligence for the opening of more than 125 new Panda Restaurant Group locations.
• Represented shopping center landlords in lease transactions with national restaurant chains and retailers.
• Manage global intellectual property portfolios.
• National restaurant chain adv. Guardado: Defeated class certification of wage and hour and uniform claims brought on behalf of 25,000 restaurant workers.
• National restaurant chain adv. Giradin: Class action challenging restaurant chain’s standby policy dismissed with prejudice on demurrer.
• National restaurant chain adv. Benitez: Class action alleging off-the-clock work settled on individual basis with Court approval.