Restaurants, Food and Drink | Paella piracy? The lawsuit alleges that owners of a brand new Spanish restaurant in Palo Alto stole recipes, key information from Bay Area rival Teleféric

A Palo Alto culinary couple is being accused of paella piracy and a tapas two-step by a preferred Bay Area restaurant group.

Restaurant group Teleféric Barcelona alleges in a trade secrets lawsuit that a pair it hired to assist run its business stole recipes and customer and client information in order that they could open a competing Spanish restaurant called Macarena in Palo Alto.

David Linares and Elisabet Reviriego are also accused within the lawsuit of using a number of the allegedly stolen information to make a deal to sell food at San Jose Sharks hockey games.

Linares told this news organization that he and Reviriego are handling the lawsuit's claims through legal channels. He declined to comment on the main points of the allegations.

“We remain confident in our actions, our values ​​and the processes we followed in launching Macarena,” Linares said by email. “We are excited to bring our vision to life in Palo Alto and are committed to providing the community with an exceptional dining experience.”

Linares was hired at Teleféric in 2019 to administer its Palo Alto restaurant and was promoted the following yr to director of operations for all five of the corporate's U.S. locations, which include restaurants in Palo Alto, Los Gatos and Walnut Creek, in line with the lawsuit.

“Linares had full access to Teleféric’s electronically stored documents and had insight into Teleféric’s confidential and proprietary information, such as recipes, contracts with suppliers and customer contacts,” said the lawsuit filed last month in Santa Clara County Superior Court.

The company hired Reviriego a number of months later and she or he was eventually promoted to marketing director, the lawsuit says.

“Reviriego allegedly managed Teleféric’s IT and had full access to all electronically stored information, including marketing materials and guest information,” the lawsuit said.

In May 2024, the couple told Teleféric they were resigning “under the false representation that they were returning to Spain,” the lawsuit says. “In fact, they conspired to open a competing Spanish restaurant in Silicon Valley using Teleféric’s confidential, proprietary and trade secrets.”

A December press release about Macarena said it might serve “Spanish home cooking at its finest” in an “elegant” atmosphere in downtown Palo Alto.

The first Teleféric opened in Barcelona, ​​Spain in 1992 by the Padrosa family, who opened a second location in that city 20 years later before expanding to the United States with a location in Walnut Creek in 2016.

When Teleféric owners Xavi Padrosa and Maria Padrosa learned last yr that Linares and Reviriego were planning to open their very own Spanish restaurant within the Bay Area after leaving Teleféric, they hired a forensic analyst to be certain that the couple didn't steal any confidential information on the way in which out, the lawsuit says.

“To their shock and dismay,” the lawsuit said, “forensic analysis revealed that Linares and Reviriego did exactly that.”

On Linares' last day at Teleféric, he downloaded nearly 17,000 documents from the corporate's Google Drive to his personal account, the lawsuit says. Included were recipes, customer contact lists, food vendor contacts, budgets, marketing strategies and pricing information for events and catering, the lawsuit says.

Reviriego, shortly before leaving Teleféric, copied after which deleted many marketing files from the corporate's database and downloaded the complete customer marketing list, the lawsuit said.

“The documents stolen from Linares and Reviriego contain confidential and proprietary information such as marketing plans, market research studies, complete marketing reports, sales and revenue forecasts and planning, competitive analysis, brand guidelines, all customer data, partnership agreements, current and future product launch plans and competitive intelligence,” it said Suit.

Linares and Reviriego “used the stolen confidential and proprietary information, including recipes, marketing materials, customer lists and operations, to emulate Teleféric's successful formula for opening and operating a Spanish cuisine restaurant,” the lawsuit says.

A rendering of Macarena, a Spanish restaurant planned for Palo Alto. (courtesy of Macarena)
A rendering of Macarena, a Spanish restaurant planned for Palo Alto. (courtesy of Macarena)

Macarena is anticipated to open later this yr, in line with its website. The Padrosas estimate the placement is lower than two miles from their Teleféric Barcelona restaurant in Palo Alto.

Reviriego, in a December post on LinkedIn Macarena would highlight its Spanish heritage and convey the “essence of Spanish hospitality.” Each dish, she wrote, would “tell a story of tradition, prepared with the love and artistry passed down through generations of my family.”

The December press release said Macarena would open in February and “celebrate the joy of simple, honest flavors.”

Reviriego and Linares are accused within the lawsuit of breaches of confidentiality agreements. Teleféric is demanding unspecified damages.

Originally published:

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