The Long Fight Over ‘Taco Tuesday’

There is fresh beef over “Taco Tuesday.”

Restaurants have for decades promoted tacos on Tuesday. The phrase is widespread, its origins fuzzy. But who holds the legal right to Taco Tuesday has been clear.

Now Taco Bell, whose marketing exploits over the decades have included a talking chihuahua spokesdog and the Doritos Locos Tacos, has rung the bell on a trademark fight with two smaller companies.

Taco Bell, owned by Yum Brands, filed petitions last week with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office seeking to cancel Taco Tuesday trademarks held by a chain called Taco John’s and a New Jersey restaurant. The term is generic and any restaurant that makes tacos should be able to use it, Taco Bell said.

Taco Bell, which has more than 7,200 U.S. locations and a reputation for its attempts at viral marketing, drafted NBA star LeBron James as an advocate for Taco Tuesday liberation. He had tried to trademark the phrase in 2019, but the trademark office denied it, saying it was a commonplace phrase.

“Everyone should be able to say and celebrate Taco (BLEEP),” James says in a Taco Bell ad, which bleeps nearly every time he says “Tuesday.”

Since the 1980s, Taco Tuesday has been trademarked by Taco John’s, a fast-food chain mostly in the Midwest, and Gregory’s Restaurant & Bar, a restaurant in the Jersey Shore city of Somers Point.

Taco John’s owns the trademark in every state but New Jersey. The Garden State remains Gregory’s trademark territory.

The history isn’t as clear-cut.

“No one knows who invented Taco Tuesday,” said Gustavo Arellano, author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.”

Restaurants have had taco specials on Tuesdays for at least 90 years, Arellano said. The earliest example he has come across is a 1933 classified ad by the White Star Cafeteria that ran in the El Paso Herald-Post.

The actual phrase “Taco Tuesday” came later, he said. The earliest documented use Arellano found is a 1971 newspaper advertisement for a restaurant in Spokane, Wash.

“At some point, people realized, ‘Oh, it’s alliterative! Taco Tuesday, that makes so much sense. Let’s put it on there,’” said Arellano, who is also a columnist with the Los Angeles Times. “And then other people started spreading it around.”

One of the earliest restaurants to use Taco Tuesday was Gregory’s Restaurant & Bar, formerly known as the Gregory Hotel. Greg Gregory, whose family owns the restaurant, tried his first taco in 1978 at a food court in Philadelphia.

It tasted terrible, but the line of people waiting to buy them inspired him, he said. Another establishment in the area had a special night called “Drink and Drown Wednesday,” and Gregory decided to serve the tacos on Tuesday to jump ahead of them, he said.

He launched tacos on Tuesday nights as a menu item in 1979, calling it Taco Tuesday. He had never seen another restaurant use that phrase, he said.

“I didn’t even know what a taco was!” Gregory said.

With the help of a friend from Texas, the restaurant started churning out Tuesday tacos. The salsa came from a Playboy magazine recipe, Gregory said.

“We’d sell 800 to 1,000 tacos a night once it started rocking and rolling,” Gregory said. “It became a cult thing. We had lines out the front door.”

Gregory applied for a trademark of Taco Tuesday in 1982, he said.

About 1,200 miles away, in St. Paul, Minn., a man named David Olson who ran a Taco John’s franchise came up with a similar idea in 1979, dubbing the special “Taco Twosday,” the company said.

The Taco Tuesday concept spread to other Taco John’s locations, said Jim Creel, chief executive of the fast-food chain, which operates nearly 400 restaurants in more than 20 states.

“Taco Tuesday was a big part of the success of the company,” Creel said. “It really got Taco John’s known throughout the Midwest.”

Taco John’s trademarked the phrase in 1989. It clashed with Gregory’s, whose trademark had lapsed. They agreed to let Gregory’s keep the trademark for New Jersey because it didn’t intend on expanding out of the state, Gregory said.

Both Gregory’s and Taco John’s try to keep Taco Tuesday to themselves. They send cease-and-desist letters to other restaurants. Gregory said his family’s restaurant has sent around 40; Taco John’s said it doesn’t track the number of letters it has sent.

Restaurants tend to stop Taco Tuesday promotions after getting the letters, Creel and Gregory said. Both said their companies have never sued another restaurant for using Taco Tuesday promotions.

Creel said businesses risk losing a trademark if they don’t work to enforce it. Taco Tuesday is an important marketing tool, he added.

“It’s not a nasty letter. We are a chain from Cheyenne, Wyo.,” he said. “We are pretty nice people.”

Gregory said Taco Tuesday is a lucrative promotion his business wants to safeguard.

Protecting a term like Taco Tuesday may be difficult given how common it is, said Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney.

“At the end of the day I think it’s very likely to succeed,” Gerben said, referring to Taco Bell’s effort to cancel the trademarks.

There are numerous examples of trademarked terms becoming generic after they have been in use for many years, said Jane Ginsburg, a professor at the Columbia University School of Law. Bayer used to own the trademark for aspirin but lost the right after a court ruled the term had become generic, Ginsburg said.

Escalator, nylon, raisin bran and yo-yo were once also trademarked but are now considered generic, she said.

Some common words do get approval. Ohio State University last year won a trademark for the word “THE.”

If the Taco Tuesday trademark case goes to trial, a decision likely wouldn’t be made until 2025, said Gerben, the trademark attorney. Taco John’s and Gregory’s both said they will fight Taco Bell’s petition to cancel the trademark.

“We are going to protect our interests,” Gregory said.

Taylor Montgomery, chief marketing officer for Taco Bell, said the petition isn’t personal.

“Taco Bell’s sole intention is to liberate Taco Tuesday for all to use without fear of legal consequences,” Montgomery said. “Taco Bell’s hope is that everyone, including Gregory’s and Taco John’s, will freely use and celebrate Taco Tuesday together.”