Lafayette-based food delivery service Waitr agreed to pay $4.7 million to a similar business in California over trademark issues and is changing its name.
Waitr has been riding high on the delivery wave during the coronavirus pandemic, diversifying revenue streams as the business looks to continue its path to consistent profitability. The company has started delivering groceries, concessions at LSU baseball games and signed a deal to create a specialized platform for the sale and delivery of legal marijuana.
California-based Waiter.com was founded in 1995 and had trademarked Waiter.com in 2000, court records show.
Waitr was founded in 2008 and trademarked its name in 2016. The California business has been demanding the Louisiana company abandon the use of its trademark since 2015.
Waitr Holdings Inc. agreed to the deal last week to settle a lawsuit which was making its way through the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
More details about the settlement are expected to included in the company’s second quarter report, which will be released later this summer.
“Waitr is rebranding to better align with the future direction of the company,” said Dean Turcol, a company spokesperson, in an email. “Internal rebrand discussions have been on-going as we want to change the name to better reflect where we’re going as a company (to deliver anything). Regarding the suit, Waitr decided to settle versus move forward with further litigation.”