The entrance to Castle Pines Golf Club. (Court documents)
As the two sides await decisions from a federal judge, Brinkerhoff Restaurants and the Castle Pines Golf Club are discussing their legal dispute in increasingly personal tones.
The two prominent, successful companies are also telling disparate stories that are only tangentially related to their trademark disagreement, including that Brinkerhoff Restaurants sought to promote its eateries at the club’s recent PGA BMW Championship.
“A complete fabrication,” said the local restaurant company. “It never happened.”
For three years, Mark and Jo Brinkerhoff have been constructing a 9,000-square-foot cocktail lounge and event space, and a 2,600-square-foot steakhouse in the Promenade at Castle Rock shopping center. The projects are expected to cost $14 million.
The restaurant will be named The Brinkerhoff, an homage to Mark’s family and its legacy of popular restaurants in the Denver area, including La Loma. The lounge is to be called Bar Hummingbird, an homage to Jo’s Mexican heritage, to which the hovering little birds are important, as well as Castle Rock’s location within hummingbird migration paths.
That doesn’t sit well with Castle Pines Golf Club, whose trademarked logo of two hummingbirds in flight is ubiquitous around the golf course. Castle Pines believes the Brinkerhoffs are infringing on that hummingbird trademark in an attempt to trick its future customers into believing that Bar Hummingbird is affiliated with the exclusive Castle Pines.
The club is seeking a federal injunction barring the Brinkerhoffs from using hummingbirds in the name or logo of their under-construction lounge. That request is still pending.
The trademark dispute is oddly personal because Mark Brinkerhoff’s grandfather and great uncle were early members of Castle Pines and, though not members, he and Jo live on club property. The club makes a point of noting that his home, called a Hummingbird Cottage, is on Hummingbird Drive — evidence, in its mind, that it inspired Bar Hummingbird.
Construction at the future Brinkerhoff restaurant and Bar Hummingbird is seen on Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (BusinessDen file)
“In 2022 and 2023 alone, Mr. Brinkerhoff played seven full rounds of golf at Castle Pines,” Mike MacAdams, the club’s vice president, explained in an affidavit on Aug. 9.
Brinkerhoff calls the legal dispute “a personal endeavor for club officials,” noting that in the 26 years it has held a hummingbird trademark, this is the first time the club has enforced it.
“It is my understanding that members of Castle Pines’ senior management team have also instructed its members and guests not to visit Brinkerhoff’s sister establishments, La Loma in Castle Rock and Sierra in Lone Tree,” Brinkerhoff claimed in an Aug. 29 affidavit.
Through a spokeswoman, Castle Pines denies telling its members to do that.
The two sides cannot agree on much, such as when the club learned of Bar Hummingbird.
MacAdams said that he first heard of the lounge’s name in spring 2024. But Brinkerhoff said he ran into MacAdams outside his Hummingbird Cottage in summer 2023 and, when asked about his business, told MacAdams about his two projects in Castle Rock.
“He congratulated me and said they looked forward to frequenting the new establishments as they were fans of Sierra in Lone Tree and La Loma,” Brinkerhoff wrote in his affidavit.
Mark Brinkerhoff, left, and his father William Brinkerhoff own La Loma. (Courtesy Brinkerhoff Hospitality)
Both sides agree the matter came to a head on July 1 of this year, when Brinkerhoff sat down with George Solich, the club’s president. The club had already sent cease-and-desist letters to Brinkerhoff, who hoped to resolve the matter out of court. That didn’t go well.
“Mr. Solich stated, ‘If there was anything on the table to discuss, we would be discussing it, but there is not,’” according to Brinkerhoff. “ … Throughout the meeting, I was bullied.”
As their case makes its way through the federal courts, it offers glimpses behind the locked gates at Castle Pines, one of the state’s most exclusive golf courses. Brinkerhoff’s affidavit, for example, claims that any non-member who asks Solich about becoming a member is denied membership as a result. “Instead, an interested party must lie in wait” for an invite.
Fittingly for its dispute with the Brinkerhoffs, Castle Pines said that is not true.
The entrance to Castle Pines Golf Club. (Court documents)
As the two sides await decisions from a federal judge, Brinkerhoff Restaurants and the Castle Pines Golf Club are discussing their legal dispute in increasingly personal tones.
The two prominent, successful companies are also telling disparate stories that are only tangentially related to their trademark disagreement, including that Brinkerhoff Restaurants sought to promote its eateries at the club’s recent PGA BMW Championship.
“A complete fabrication,” said the local restaurant company. “It never happened.”
For three years, Mark and Jo Brinkerhoff have been constructing a 9,000-square-foot cocktail lounge and event space, and a 2,600-square-foot steakhouse in the Promenade at Castle Rock shopping center. The projects are expected to cost $14 million.
The restaurant will be named The Brinkerhoff, an homage to Mark’s family and its legacy of popular restaurants in the Denver area, including La Loma. The lounge is to be called Bar Hummingbird, an homage to Jo’s Mexican heritage, to which the hovering little birds are important, as well as Castle Rock’s location within hummingbird migration paths.
That doesn’t sit well with Castle Pines Golf Club, whose trademarked logo of two hummingbirds in flight is ubiquitous around the golf course. Castle Pines believes the Brinkerhoffs are infringing on that hummingbird trademark in an attempt to trick its future customers into believing that Bar Hummingbird is affiliated with the exclusive Castle Pines.
The club is seeking a federal injunction barring the Brinkerhoffs from using hummingbirds in the name or logo of their under-construction lounge. That request is still pending.
The trademark dispute is oddly personal because Mark Brinkerhoff’s grandfather and great uncle were early members of Castle Pines and, though not members, he and Jo live on club property. The club makes a point of noting that his home, called a Hummingbird Cottage, is on Hummingbird Drive — evidence, in its mind, that it inspired Bar Hummingbird.
Construction at the future Brinkerhoff restaurant and Bar Hummingbird is seen on Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (BusinessDen file)
“In 2022 and 2023 alone, Mr. Brinkerhoff played seven full rounds of golf at Castle Pines,” Mike MacAdams, the club’s vice president, explained in an affidavit on Aug. 9.
Brinkerhoff calls the legal dispute “a personal endeavor for club officials,” noting that in the 26 years it has held a hummingbird trademark, this is the first time the club has enforced it.
“It is my understanding that members of Castle Pines’ senior management team have also instructed its members and guests not to visit Brinkerhoff’s sister establishments, La Loma in Castle Rock and Sierra in Lone Tree,” Brinkerhoff claimed in an Aug. 29 affidavit.
Through a spokeswoman, Castle Pines denies telling its members to do that.
The two sides cannot agree on much, such as when the club learned of Bar Hummingbird.
MacAdams said that he first heard of the lounge’s name in spring 2024. But Brinkerhoff said he ran into MacAdams outside his Hummingbird Cottage in summer 2023 and, when asked about his business, told MacAdams about his two projects in Castle Rock.
“He congratulated me and said they looked forward to frequenting the new establishments as they were fans of Sierra in Lone Tree and La Loma,” Brinkerhoff wrote in his affidavit.
Mark Brinkerhoff, left, and his father William Brinkerhoff own La Loma. (Courtesy Brinkerhoff Hospitality)
Both sides agree the matter came to a head on July 1 of this year, when Brinkerhoff sat down with George Solich, the club’s president. The club had already sent cease-and-desist letters to Brinkerhoff, who hoped to resolve the matter out of court. That didn’t go well.
“Mr. Solich stated, ‘If there was anything on the table to discuss, we would be discussing it, but there is not,’” according to Brinkerhoff. “ … Throughout the meeting, I was bullied.”
As their case makes its way through the federal courts, it offers glimpses behind the locked gates at Castle Pines, one of the state’s most exclusive golf courses. Brinkerhoff’s affidavit, for example, claims that any non-member who asks Solich about becoming a member is denied membership as a result. “Instead, an interested party must lie in wait” for an invite.
Fittingly for its dispute with the Brinkerhoffs, Castle Pines said that is not true.
