Who Owns The Taquería? | Translation

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Translated by MC Editorial

[Daniel Alarcón]: This is Radio Ambulante. I’m Daniel Alarcón. 

[Archive Soundbite: London]

[Daniel]: Today we begin in London… 

A city with over 15 thousand restaurants of all kinds and from all over: India, China, Thailand, Italy. But this story is about a Mexican restaurant. Hers:

[Michelle Salazar]: My name is Michelle Salazar and I own a taquería.

[Daniel]: Michelle was born in Hermosillo, Sonora, a Mexican city in a state bordering the United States. She came to London in 2012 to study fashion. Then she did a master’s degree, during which she started dating Sam, an Englishman, and ended up staying.

[Michelle]: And my mom jokingly said, “Open a restaurant over there.”

[Daniel]: In Mexico, her maternal family had been in the food sector for years, with a very successful business called Pollo Feliz. After much hesitation, in 2020 Michelle decided to start a food stand at a market in the northern part of the city. 

[Michelle]: We started with the roast chicken menu. It was very simple: we had chicken meals, and we immediately decided that we wanted tacos, so we made tacos, and then we realized that people were curious about the flour tortillas. 

[Daniel]: Flour tortillas are the base of Norteño tacos in Mexico. Michelle had learned to make them from scratch in an attempt to recreate the flavors of home. They became so popular that, six months after opening, and despite the pandemic, Michelle and Sam decided it was time to change their focus. They stopped selling chicken meals and focused on selling tacos. And to do that, they looked for a name that reflected their new identity.

[Michelle]: To me, the obvious name was always Sonora. 

[Daniel]: The state where she grew up. And since it was a place that sold tacos, they decided to add the word Taquería at the end: Sonora Taquería.

Very soon, Sonora Taquería became one of the area’s favorite street spots, with a few mentions in some of the city’s media outlets. And although it was open only on weekends, over the next few years the business became more and more popular.

[Michelle]: The capacity was at its maximum, and every weekend we sold all the food we made. It was very rare that we threw away any food.

[Daniel]: In July 2022, Michelle and Sam announced on Instagram that they were taking a break. They were starting to outgrow their location. They wanted to find a bigger place. The announcement was made two months in advance so their frequent customers could visit before the business closed.

[Michelle]: And when we announced that we were going to close, we received by physical mail a book like this, a very thick document.

[Daniel]: It came in a white, letter-sized envelope. Michelle ignored it and left it on the table. The next day, she was in the production kitchen when she got a call from Sam.

[Michelle]: So he calls me and says, “I’m not sure; I haven’t read it all. I read the beginning and it kind of freaked me out, but come and we can read it together. I think it’s a lawsuit.”

[Daniel]: A few hours later, they got together and began reading the document. It was a letter known as a “cease and desist,” that is, a request sent by someone for the person receiving it to suspend an activity immediately and desist from resuming it later on. Failure to do so could result in legal action. The letter said Michelle’s business was infringing on the intellectual property of another restaurant on the west side of town. 

[Michelle]: And it says, “You are doing something wrong, and that you are doing it illegally, so you have to change it.” They included images of absolutely everything—our pictures, our social networks, our store logo, the website, and they said, You have to remove all this. You have two weeks to do it.”

[Daniel]: And everything they had to remove, which was infringing intellectual property, was something Michelle had never expected. She was being asked to remove the word Taquería from the name of her business.

[Michelle]: I thought it was so absurd. Because taquería is something so common; it’s something… It’s a description. So… Well, if you can use the word coffee for a coffee shop, why can’t you use taquería for a taco place?

[Daniel]: After the break, a story about everything a word can mean.

We’ll be right back.

[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. Our production assistant, Selene Mazón, picks up the story.

[Selene]: Michelle and Sam were confused. Because, well, as Michelle said, the word taquería simply describes a place where tacos are sold. It’s that simple. Like a cafeteria, a pizzeria, a bakery, a pastry shop. Words that you wouldn’t think were registered as intellectual property.

However, Michelle remembered something. Two years earlier, when they were just thinking about opening Sonora Taquería, she received a message on Instagram.

[Michelle]: Someone else had a taco place and wanted to name it Fulanito Taquería, and they sent us a message saying, “Be careful because the word Taquería is registered.” But it seemed so strange and absurd, that we didn’t pay attention to it. 

[Selene]: They paid no attention. For the next two years, Michelle forgot about it—until the day she received the white envelope.

The warning came from a team of lawyers representing a restaurant called Taquería with two branches in London. Gradually, her disbelief turned to fear. 

[Michelle]: We were both scared of what could happen. “We are going to get sued; we are going to go bankrupt.” How bad is this? I mean, how serious is this? 

[Selene]: But, in addition to fear, she was also upset. So, like any good millennial, she posted a story on Sonora Taquería’s Instagram with the first page of the letter she had received and a line saying that it was the last thing she needed at that moment.  She posted the story to vent, but also…

[Michelle]: Because in other instances, with other problems that we have had, like… something breaks down, whatever it is, you post on Instagram and someone supports you, someone tells you, “Oh, I know so-and-so.” or “I can recommend this person to you,” or whatever.

[Selene]: And sure enough, the responses started to arrive immediately. They were messages of all kinds, from people expressing their surprise, their indignation, giving them encouragement…

Among her followers, there was an editor from a specialized gastronomy media outlet who knew Michelle because he had interviewed her to review her business. When he saw the story, he contacted her to ask about the situation and soon published a piece about it.

In addition to the interview with Michelle and Sam, where they explained the generic nature of the term and showed screenshots of the menu, the piece said that the Taquería restaurant had registered the word in 2004 and that it was not the first time they had taken legal action against a business. In 2020, they had won a case where they opposed the registration of a restaurant with a name derived from a wordplay “Taco Ria,” separated into two words. The argument was the probability that the average consumer could confuse one brand with the other.

The journalist contacted the Taquería, whose response was an official written statement. It was a paragraph summarizing, basically, that in the UK the law grants the owner of a trademark its exclusive right.

The piece began to be shared once, twice, three times—and it got to this person:

[Paola Feregrino]: I am Paola Feregrino, I am from Querétaro, Mexico, and I am involved in marketing and promoting cultural events.

[Selene]: Paola has been living in London for over 20 years and is co-founder of Mexibrit, a digital community of Mexican entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom.

[Paola]: I saw the article that talked about this, and I was in total shock. I said no—I mean, “No, I can’t believe this, how can this be possible?”

[Selene]: She was so shocked that she immediately shared the piece in the WhatsApp group she had with several Mexicans in the city. When she realized that her outrage was shared, she decided to do something about it.

She and another woman wrote a text on change.org. It was titled: STOP CULTURAL APPROPRIATION. Taquería is NOT a registered trademark.

The petition ended like this:

[Paola]: “It’s time we stopped the greedy UK Taquería from registering the Taquería trademark in the UK. All taco restaurants should be able to add taquería to their name!”

[Selene]: The matter did not end there. After going to a Mexican food event, Paola took the opportunity to take a photo outside the place. She was wearing a green embroidered blouse and carried a sign that hid her face with the phrase “This is also a taquería” written by hand and a couple of arrows pointing to the place.

She posted it on Mexibrit’s Instagram. Below the photo she said basically the same thing as the petition on change.org: that the word was not owned by anyone, and she ended by inviting Mexibrit followers to do the same. So was born a campaign with the hashtag #Thisisalsoataquería. It was the beginning of something more.

[Paola]: So people started contacting me from all over the United Kingdom, I started receiving photographs of restaurants sent by the staff, with signs saying: “This is also a taquería.” “This is also a taquería.”

[Selene]: But it was not only Mexicans who joined together to defend the word. So did the Latino digital community.

[Paola]: People started posting in tons of Facebook groups, and I mean not just Mexicans in England, in London. Everyone joined in; everyone started sharing their discontent and tagging them on Twitter, on Instagram, tagging them in stories that were being posted everywhere: “Hey, this is happening. Don’t go to this place!” 

[Selene]: In those days, Michelle’s cell phone did not stop vibrating.

[Michelle]: Many places around the country started sending us messages saying, “Oh, that happened to me, too. We got the same message,” not just because of the logo of the place, or ads or whatever, but because they had taquería in the window.

[Selene]: But unlike her, their testimonies had remained isolated stories. Those were different times, without social media.

Thanks to the spread of her case, a regular client of Sonora Taquería contacted Michelle and told her that he knew an intellectual property lawyer who was willing to offer his services for free. He helped her write an official response to Taquería’s letter, arguing that the term was generic. Now it was time to wait.

But by that time, the virtual terrain had become a battlefield where every TikTok, every tweet, every reel, every story was ammunition against the Taquería restaurant.

[Archive Soundbite]

[Tik Tok 1]: (This goes on to the Mexican community.)  We need the Latin community globally to help us out right now because what is going on in London it’s a mad colonizing shit…

[Network noise]: A restaurant in London claims that no one else can use the word taquería. Not even Mexicans.

[Tiktok 2]: In London, a British restaurant sued a Mexican woman for using the word taquería in her business… In other words, British people appropriating another culture to get rich themselves. Strange, isn’t it? Are you kidding me?

[Selene]: The comments on social media were of all kinds. Some accused Michelle and Sam of not respecting the rules of the United Kingdom…

[Michelle]: “Those Mexicans who don’t respect the rules of the UK. You live there, and you don’t even know, and you’re stupid, and you’re wrong. I mean, why didn’t you investigate? It’s your fault, too.”

[Selene]: There were others who were more ingenious, who saw in this lawsuit an opportunity to give the business a more original name:

[Ana]: I say they name it “Sonora Taconmadre”

[José Yáñez]: They should call it “Tacos La Queen”

[Damián]: “Oh, I don’t know, they need more street smarts, because someone here would have already come up with another name… Something like… Taquitos Elizabeth II”

[Selene]: But a large number of people, if not the majority, defended the Mexican motherland. 

[Alejandra]: @Taqueríauk “TAQUERÍA” is a UNIVERSAL word!! I am Mexican and I will use that word whenever I want, my country 🇲🇽 supports me 😎 and if you don’t like it, come and see!!!

[Mariana]: Nobody messes with Mexicans, much less with our language use. Ahhhh, I’m pissed off now.

[Alejandro]: They don’t know who they messed with. Now all of Mexico will turn against them.

[Selene]: The message was simple: they had messed with the wrong country. They had touched a national symbol, a cultural institution— perhaps the most iconic food of an entire country, a mark of identity. And if this was a battle, the Mexicans and Latinos were winning it.

In a short time, the dispute over the ownership of the name “Taquería” in London became a recurring topic of conversation in the city’s Latin circles. Or so it seemed. Because, of course, not everyone was aware of what was going on in the virtual world…

[Fernando]: I’ve always tried to stay out of things. I just wanted to go do my job and be done with it.

[Selene]: We’ll call him Fernando, a Colombian man who had been working as a waiter in one of the Taquería branches for two years when the news broke. Gradually, he began to notice strange things in the restaurant:

[Fernando]: I started to hear whisperings of something happening, especially when calls came in… or when they did things with bookings, with reservations…

[Selene]: Calls that the restaurant hosts answered but immediately were hung up on… reservations that in the end never showed up… Fernando was quick to find out about the issue of the restaurant’s name.

[Fernando]: But I thought that was… well, nothing serious, something that could be sorted out, I don’t know, with lawyers or by talking. I mean, I didn’t even pay attention to it.

[Selene]: Until he started noticing that some of the staff stopped showing up. And although, at first, the official version was that they were sick or on vacation, it was enough for Fernando to investigate on social media what was happening with the business. Some messages seemed very creative, but others… well, not so much…

[Fernando]: Hate messages, half-threatening or mocking… all kinds. I heard that there were issues of threats against the families of people from the Taquería, which is also the reason why some of the staff were not showing up.

[Selene]: He began to hear stories from some of his colleagues who worked at the other branch of Taquería, anecdotes that began to make him nervous, like people who had come to yell or throw trash at the restaurant. 

[Fernando]: There was the stress that all this could lead to physical violence and physically affect us, the staff, who have nothing to do with this. We are simply here trying to earn money to survive in this city.

[Selene]: The social media campaign in defense of the word “taquería” seemed to be moving from the virtual plane to the physical.

Until that moment, Michelle had been re-tweeting or re-posting messages related to the news of her business, but there came a point when she began to feel overwhelmed. Just as she was tagged with supportive texts, she was tagged also with insults or threats directed at Taquería’s restaurants.

[Michelle]: At that point I was really stressed out. The truth is, all I wanted was for everything to stop, and even more so with the threats coming directly to them, and us finding out about them; we were like, “It’s not that big of a deal.” It felt like it wasn’t even about us anymore. It was a way for people to express all those negative feelings, defending their own food, their identity. That’s when I felt like it was more about that and less about us.

[Selene]: This whole situation showed that the word “taquería,” apparently harmless, actually carried with it a very strong symbolic weight, which differentiated it from any other. In that attempt to defend the word, in addition to the virtual boycott against Taquería, a group began to organize on WhatsApp to stage a protest in front of the branch in Notting Hill, but the demonstration never took place.

During the weeks the boycott lasted, Taquería remained silent. And so it continued for two more years. Until, after several attempts, I managed to speak with one of its representatives.

I‘ll continue the story after the break.

[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. Selene Mazón continues the story.

[Selene]: It was June 2024 when I entered the branch in Notting Hill, a London neighborhood famous for its Victorian houses, its green areas, and for being popular with celebrities.

[Archive Soundbite: Taquería Restaurant]

[Ismael Muñoz]: When all this grew, in addition to the pain of having always defended Mexican food, it was also like they didn’t have the complete version.

[Selene]: This is Ismael Muñoz, a Colombian and director of operations for the Taquería group for 18 years.

And the version they wanted to tell went back to the origins of Taquería, in the early 2000s. 

[Ismael]: It started with an American woman and she was… she loves Mexican food. But what she wanted most of all was to bring Mexican products. The chilies—it was a time when the flour, the tortillas, were unknown, and she was completely passionate about Mexican food.

[Selene]: She started out with a small food stall at a market and, after a while, she opened her first restaurant there, becoming one of the pioneers in introducing Mexican cuisine on the London culinary scene:

[Ismael]: At first, it was a very difficult start because there’s the issue that Mexican food was not so famous in London, and also, you have the Mexicans who see a taquería in London and say, “No, what are they thinking of?”

[Selene]: They first tried with an English chef, whom they brought to Mexico for a month so he could experience the flavors firsthand. But then they hired a chef from Sonora.

[Ismael]: And that’s when, in my opinion, I think the true story of Taquería began: an American woman’s passion for ingredients, and with this chef who was completely… I mean, he would sweat tacos through his pores, you know what I mean? 

[Selene]: The restaurant started out with the aesthetics of a traditional Mexican cantina. It had a wooden floor, aluminum tables, and posters of Mexican movies and Mexican wrestling. Later, as the Notting Hill neighborhood became more modern and trendy, the restaurant transformed its design to a more minimalist one, keeping some Mexican details. Today, twenty years later, Taquería has other owners and a branch in the city center.

In those two decades, the culinary scene in London also changed. Food markets became popular, and this allowed more and more people to start a food business without needing to rent a space. Different possibilities began to emerge that, according to Ismael, could cause confusion for some of his clients. And that, he says, is what happened with Sonora.

[Ismael]: Look, I’m not going to lie to you. For us, Sonora—I shouldn’t say it like this, but—I mean, it’s a stall in a market. And no, it doesn’t represent any kind of competition for us. If you want to say that…

[Selene]: But for him, it was a call that set it all off.

[Ismael]: I find out that they exist when a lady calls me, comes up to me and says, “Hey, I’m going to sue you. You could kill someone.”

[Selene]: According to Ismael, the lady accused Taquería of sending her an order of tacos with flour tortillas, which almost killed her because she was allergic. Ismael tried to defend himself, explaining that they had only two dishes with flour tortillas, and that all the ingredients and possible allergies are specified on the website. But after a few minutes without reaching an agreement, he asked her:

[Ismael]: “Ma’am, excuse me. Before I continue, may I ask you a question? Tell me what you ordered.”

[Selene]: The lady mentioned two tacos that Ismael didn’t recognize. He then asked her to check the receipt that had been sent to her, and she said that it was from Sonora Taquería. According to his story, the lady had ended up calling the wrong place. Although, according to Sonora, they had nothing to do with that order because they didn’t have delivery service at the time. Ismael told me that he tried to contact Michelle and Sam. 

[Ismael]: So I tried to contact them. I tried to get hold of them, and I was never able to talk to them and say, “Guys, come on, please. I know it’s clear on your Instagram, but in England things are done this other way.”

[Selene]: According to him, he wanted them not to use the word taquería in their brand because it created ambiguity with customers. Since he didn’t get any response, he decided to leave it in the hands of his law firm. 

We’ll be right back.

[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. Selene Mazón continues the story.

[Selene]: Ismael told me that the reason behind turning to his lawyers to ask Michelle to remove the word “taquería” from her business is quite simple:

[Ismael]: The problem with this is a trade issue in the United Kingdom. In England, to open a business, the first thing you have to do is go to what is called the Company House, and you have to make sure that your name, the name of your company, is not the same as that of another company. I understand the annoyance because many… a taquería is… I understand that it is like a pizzeria… but 20 years ago in London, nobody knew what a taquería was. Maybe people who went to Mexico.

[Selene]: I was surprised by Ismael’s statement because, although he admitted the generic nature of the name, his defense was just a matter of a formality. And of course, I understood the commercial logic. In a market as competitive as London’s, identity—of a brand or a business in this case—is very valuable; there is a lot of money involved, but… does that still justify it?

So, to get a clearer idea of the criteria underlying the law, I spoke with a lawyer specializing in intellectual property.

[Lizbeth García]: A brand may not use a word that is generic or descriptive of the products or services it is putting into circulation on the market.

[Selene]: This is Lizbeth García, a Mexican lawyer with a master’s degree in intellectual property from the United Kingdom.

[Lizbeth]: Why? For the simple fact, the simple reason that it would be causing economic damage to the competition.  Its use would be off-limits to all other competitors in the market, and also, at the end of the day, it harms the consumer, who is left with fewer market options and all that.

[Selene]: This is a principle of trademark law that applies both in Mexico and in the United Kingdom. The only exception in which a generic word can be registered is when it has no relation to the context of the business in question.

For example, the registration of “Apple” as a trademark was possible because the company’s business is technology and not fruit sales. In that sense, “taquería” in Mexico could never be a registered trademark, just as “pub” could not be one in the United Kingdom. Only, in this case, the language played a role against it.

[Lizbeth]: Because, even though generic, it is a foreign word. This is where subjective judgment comes into play. Also technical, because we would have to start analyzing, reviewing, doing surveys of, “Ah, okay, how many people in the United Kingdom who visit the taquería, who know the taquería, who know that that word is foreign, know that it is of Mexican origin?”

[Selene]: And yes, that was one of Ismael’s arguments.

So I decided to do an experiment: I went out to the streets of London to do a little survey. I wanted to ask people whether they knew this word… to see whether it was true that the word taquería in this city doesn’t really mean much.

[Archive Soundbite]

[Person 1]: What’s taquería?

[Person 2]: Taquería? No. 

[Person 3]: Taquería? Maybe coming from tacos or something like that, but I’m just guessing ‘cause I’m not sure about it.

[Person 6]: I haven’t heard of taquería before.

[Persona 7]: Taquería? Is it like a restaurant? I’ve never heard of it. 

[Selene]: Of the nearly 20 people I approached, just under half could guess that it was something related to tacos. And although the sample is not at all representative, I must confess that I was surprised.

And, well, that’s fine. Nobody has to know everything. Chances are that, if I asked in Mexico what a pub is, few people would know what to answer. But beyond that, I was intrigued to know why the Intellectual Property Office registered this word. If the United Kingdom recognizes three official languages in addition to English, shouldn’t these types of entities think about the meaning of the words they register?

That’s why I wrote them asking about the criteria and the process behind registering the word taquería. They responded with a guide and overview of the intellectual property law and procedures. However, they told me that they cannot comment on the interpretation of the law in particular cases or on possible decisions or outcomes.

But back to Michelle and the case. After she and her partner sent the response to Taquería’s law firm, communication was essentially through their legal representative. When things calmed down a bit, a month after receiving the letter, Michelle and Sam launched a crowdfunding campaign to open Sonora Taquería in a new location in the north side of the city. To do so, they published a video thanking people for their support during the legal dispute, and that may have been what helped make the campaign a success. They managed to raise over 70 thousand pounds.

In early 2023, after all the noise on the internet and the mobilization caused by this case, an agreement was finally reached with Taquería to settle the matter peaceably. 

[Michelle]: And when it seemed like we had reached a resolution, we felt like neither they nor we were interested. So we left it alone and that was when we decided, “Maybe it’s time to register the trademark and now there will be no doubt.”

[Selene]: In March 2023, Michelle and Sam decided to register the Sonora Taquería brand and logo with the UK Intellectual Property Office.

Although the matter ended on good terms, Ismael insists that it was never about stopping competition, but rather defending the legacy of a restaurant that had existed for 20 years in London.

[Ismael]: They are all creating new companies. We have only that one word, you know what I mean? I mean, the newcomers are the ones who should adapt.

[Selene]: I understand the branding issue, the 20-year legacy of a restaurant, yes. But almost 9,000 kilometers away, we are talking about centuries of history of an entire country. So who is the newcomer?

[Archive Soundbite: Mexico City]

[Selene]: There are more than 46,000 registered taquerías in Mexico. This, of course, without counting the many informal taco stands that come and go every day on the streets of the country. And although the first mention of the word “taco” appears only in 1831, in a Mexican cookbook, it is a much more ancient food, which has been enriched by other cultural processes. A case in point is “tacos al pastor,” which use a Lebanese preparation technique—kebabs and tacos al pastor being first cousins. No one is the original owner of anything. But what does belong to us are the stories that are formed around these things. And the fact is that nowhere in the world is the word “taco” more important than in Mexico. And I am not the one saying this:

[Bárbara]: For me, taquerías and tacos are much more than just food. They are my culture, my identity as a Mexican.

[Ketzalzin]: A food that represents friendship. So, normally when I’m with my friends, with people I love, I go for tacos.

[Omar]: It is a place that combines a feeling of comfort, of foods that are familiar, that have been around forever, and that, for that reason, give us a sense of peace. 

[Pepe]: Tacos are the hug my tummy always needs.

[Selene]: Taquería, tacos… it doesn’t matter. In the end we are talking about something more than just a physical space—it’s an experience that goes beyond all commercial logic.

Selene Mazón is a production assistant for Radio Ambulante and lives in Mexico City. This story was edited by Camila Segura and Luis Fernando Vargas. Bruno Scelza did the fact-checking. The sound design is by Andrés Azpiri and Rémy Lozano, with original music by Rémy.

Special thanks to Yásnaya Aguilar, Ketzalzin Almanza, Damián Flores, Ana González, José Iturraga, Omar Mejía, Bárbara Mendoza, Alejandro Ponce, Alberto Peralta, Alejandra Ramírez, Mariana Vázquez and José Yáñez.

The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Lisette Arévalo, Pablo Argüelles, Adriana Bernal, Aneris Casassus, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Juan David Naranjo, Melissa Rabanales, Natalia Ramirez, Barbara Sawhill, David Trujillo, Ana Tuirán, Elsa Liliana Ulloa and Desirée Yépez.

Carolina Guerrero is the CEO. 

Radio Ambulante is a podcast by Radio Ambulante Estudios, produced and mixed on the Hindenburg PRO program.

If you enjoyed this episode and want us to continue doing independent journalism about Latin America, support us through Deambulantes, our membership program. Visit radioambulante.org/donar and help us continue narrating the region.

Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thanks for listening.