NJ bar owner continues legal beef with Taco Bell over ‘Taco Tuesday'

Planning your weekly "Taco Tuesday" celebration? Gregory Gregory wants you to know who the originator of the popular phrase actually is. 

“I want it to be known that we are the original 'Taco Tuesday.' We started it,” Gregory, the co-owner of Gregory’s Bar and Restaurant in Somers Point, New Jersey, told NBC10. 

Gregory is currently waging a legal battle with Taco Bell over the fast food giant’s attempt to make “Taco Tuesday” free for anyone to use.

“We feel that we’ve done the right thing,” Gregory said. “We went through the process. We had our trademark.” 

Gregory trademarked the term “Taco Tuesday” in 1982. In 1989, Taco John’s, a Wyoming-based restaurant chain, won the rights to “Taco Tuesday” in every state except for New Jersey. 

“It’s not that we’re going to expand across the country,” Gregory said. “We’re worried about the business we have here.”

While “Taco Tuesday” has become a well-known phrase often used at restaurants and elsewhere, Taco John's has worked hard to defend its more than 40-year-old trademark of the term in the 49 states besides New Jersey. The fast food chain sent many cease-and-desist orders over the years to anyone besides Gregory's Restaurant & Bar that dared to have a “Taco Tuesday” promotion.

In 2019, the company went so far as to send a letter to a small brewery just five blocks from its corporate headquarters, warning it to stop using “Taco Tuesday” to promote a taco truck parked outside on Tuesdays.

Even NBA star LeBron James – whose Taco Tuesday celebrations became a viral sensation on social media – got in on the action that year, filing unsuccessfully for his own “Taco Tuesday” trademark.

James later collaborated with Taco Bell in a commercial pushing for an end to the copyright. 

The disputes culminated with Taco Bell filing with U.S. trademark regulators this May to get Taco John’s and Gregory's Restaurant & Bar to abandon their trademarks, saying the term had become too widely used to belong to any one person or business.

On Tuesday, Taco John's finally surrendered its claim to "Taco Tuesday," allowing Taco Bell to use the phrase in 49 states, with New Jersey a notable exception.

Gregory now stands alone in the “Taco Tuesday” battle. 

“We’re gonna try and play this out and hopefully Taco Bell will understand that look, I’m a little guy, I just want to make a living,” Gregory said. 

Stephen Altamuro, an attorney representing Gregory’s restaurant, also told NBC News they would continue the fight. 

“Gregory’s has had the rights to the phrase 'Taco Tuesday' for more than 40 years,” he said. “We’re a small company taking on a huge company and certainly we’re the underdog here but we’re gonna do our best.”

A spokesperson for Taco Bell didn’t address Gregory’s trademark but said, in part, that Taco John’s recent decision to give up the phrase is a “shared victory with Taco allies everywhere.” 

Gregory’s customers, meanwhile, believe he’s the rightful owner. 

“He was the first one, when nobody did it,” Frank Steever told NBC10. “So I think he deserves to have it.” 

Despite his frustration with the recent developments, Gregory also acknowledged the publicity his fight with Taco Bell has generated for his business. 

“We have gotten a lot of customers that were new because they saw it,” he said. 

Gregory also knows a long legal battle with Taco Bell could be very expensive. 

“I can’t take this too far,” he said. 

For now, however, he continues to put up a shell of a fight in his ongoing beef with Taco Bell.