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Taco Barr LLC, on behalf of Taco Escobarr, has filed suit against a Las Vegas restaurateur for operating a restaurant under a nearly identical name.

The suit claims that Taco Escobar in Las Vegas has violated the Lanham Act, which protects trademarks and prevents companies from adopting brand names identical or too similar to ones already in use.

Taco Escobarr owner Thomas Barr learned of the Las Vegas restaurant in 2024, according to the suit, filed Oct. 2 in U.S. District Court for the District of Maine. The suit contends he read about plans for the venue in a local Las Vegas publication that included a site map with the brand name and logo for Taco Escobarr, lifted directly from Barr’s website for his own restaurant.

Barr, who has operated Taco Escobarr on Congress Street for more than 15 years, reached out to the brokerage firm listed in the article, but received no response. Shortly after, though, the Nevada restaurant dropped the second “r” in its name.

The suit notes that Las Vegas restaurateur Jeffrey Fine, owner of Taco Escobar, has publicly stated that he goes out of town on dining research trips, specifically to Maine. It quotes from a 2024 published interview of Fine: “I like exploring, traveling, and importing places that are doing well back here to Las Vegas,” Fine says. “Driving up and down the (Maine) coast, there’s lobster shacks, clam shacks, and just the whole experience of doing that inspired me, for instance, to bring a lobster roll business to Vegas.”

“Recently, our client was dismayed to learn that one of those visitors to Maine had apparently taken Taco Escobarr’s name and brand identity back home to Nevada to open a restaurant there,” attorney Stacy Stitham of Brann & Isaacson in Lewiston wrote in response to a reporter’s query. “After several efforts to reach out to establish a dialogue were met with silence, Taco Escobarr’s owner has filed suit to protect the goodwill and reputation of one of Portland’s iconic restaurants.”

After Taco Escobar opened in Las Vegas in 2025, the suit states that Taco Escobarr has received calls from customers trying to reach the Las Vegas restaurant, and social media reviewers have left negative reviews about the Portland venue, thinking they were commenting on the Las Vegas restaurant.

The suit states that Fine’s actions are “likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception as to the affiliation, connection, or association between Taco Escobar (Vegas) and Barr,” and so “constitute trademark infringement, false designation of origin, and/or unfair competition.”

Barr’s suit seeks to prevent Fine and his associates from using Taco Escobar or any other confusingly similar business name, and asks the court for statutory and compensatory damages, “including lost profits due to diverted sales, lost goodwill, and cheapening of plaintiff’s reputation.”

Barr declined to comment and referred questions to his attorney. Fine and his management group did not immediately return calls for comment on Monday.