Feb 20 2009
Richard Blais is Gonna ‘Flip’!
The news from TONY, Eater and Midtown Lunch is that a new burger joint is slated to open in Bloomie’s in the men’s lower level on Feb 23rd. The good news is that it will feature three different Pat LaFrieda beef blends—hearty (short rib), sweet (brisket) and refined (Wagyu)— as well as lamb, turkey or veggie options, among others. I love the La Frieda Black Label Burger at City Burger. The bad news is that they are naming this burger joint Flip. Sound familiar? Well, it should. Richard Blais of Season 4 Top Chef fame opened a burger joint in Atlanta back in December called Flip. This is where it gets interesting, though. Blais has been hinting since last summer that a Manhattan outpost of Flip may be in the works. As Blais, a New York native, told TimeOut NY about Flip in July: ”[New York] is the next market we’re looking to hit.” Looks like we may have one of those legal name battles on our hands again. As recently as Feb. 12th, Blais wrote on his blog, Trail Blais, that, “On the cooking front, of course, I’m getting ready for Flip’s expansion…with three cities expected later this year, and up to 9 the following.” If NYC is one of those markets, we can’t have 2 Flip’s here. It’ll be too confusing. We may have to settle this in a good old fashioned Burger Wars showdown.
do we have another rays’s pizza fiasco on our hands. someone should try to see if nyc is really one of the places blais wants to expand to with his Flip. i saw that he also wrote on his website that one goal of his is”having FLIP become an iconic brand.” that’ll be tougher up here if someone like La Frieda has his own brand Flip. interesting.
[...] was set to open an upscale burger joint called ‘Flip’ we wrote in a post titled “Richard Blais is Gonna ‘Flip’!” back on Feb. 20th that we may have another one of those legal name battles on our hands. Blais had [...]