Naming In The News

Chain Changing Name

Other restaurant's moniker too similar; move won't affect menu

Let's say you have a wildly successful restaurant chain, win all kinds of accolades, and boast a brand that's recognized around the state.

Would you have the nerve to change its name?

That's what the owners of Delaware's La Tolteca empire are doing, rebranding their nine restaurants as "La Tonalteca" in an effort to set themselves apart from all the unrelated restaurants named La Toltecas scattered around the country.

It's a move that's generating some criticism, some confusion, and some predictions that a name change won't hurt these landmark Mexican restaurants a bit.

While restaurants depend on their names to accomplish many things — identity, character, appeal — they rely more on a solid core of regulars, restaurant owners said. In the end, diners can assimilate a name change without a hiccup if it's handled right, experts said.

Whether it helps accomplish these owners' broader strategic goals -- a reinvention of the La Tolteca experience into one that's a bit more refined -- is a question that time will answer. Other Delaware restaurant owners have survived and thrived even after repeated name changes, hard-to-pronounce monikers and multiple-word mouthfuls.

In La Tonalteca's case, customers will encounter a new name that's somewhat close to the original, but still too odd to be effective, said restaurant marketing specialist Joel Cohen of RestaurantMarketing.com.

"That's a lousy name," Cohen said. "Both of them are bad names, because you can't remember them, you can't spell them."

It's also more of a struggle to pronounce, a problem that Delaware restaurateur Dan Butler encountered after opening his first business, Griglia Toscana ("Tuscan Grill") in 1991. "When you say it in Italian, it sounds really beautiful," he said. When customers tried to pronounce it, much of that beauty fell victim to American-style mangling.

In ensuing years, Butler would change the Wilmington restaurant's name twice more. Next up was Tavola Toscana, or "Tuscan Table." Then, with his more upscale second restaurant Deep Blue finding success, Butler sought to re-brand Toscana as a more casual option. Thus, the current name: Toscana Kitchen + Bar.

In La Tonalteca's case, the owners wanted to create a new identity, but still hold on to the Mexican-Aztec character of "Tolteca," the people of Mesoamerican lore thought to have come from the central Mexican city-state of Toltec.

"It was an important empire," said Marilyn A. Masson, a professor of anthropology at the State University of New York in Albany. "But it became legendary after it fell. It was idolized by the Aztecs because of its mythology."

Part of that mythology continues in the pyramid that serves as the logo for La Tolteca and La Tonalteca, a word that refers to the people from the Mexican city of Tonalá, and translates roughly into "the place where the sun comes from," restaurant spokesman Yonathan Galindo said.

"They probably should have left it as it was — or gone with something entirely different," said William Lozito, president of Strategic Name Development in Minneapolis. "I think the name change is a difference without a distinction," he said. "It is too close."

Part of the problem with the original name was its popularity — there are unrelated La Toltecas in nearby states, and also locations as far away as California and Arizona.

Also, the La Toltecas in Delaware are an offspring of sorts of a Virginia-based group of restaurants by the same name — the first Delaware La Tolteca was opened by sons of the Virginia restaurants' owners.

There is no dispute over the name with that group, Galindo said. "Virginia had nothing to do with it."

Regardless, marketing consultants say it's crucial to prepare customers, and La Tonalteca has been detailing the change in newspaper ads. That's a step that helped ease this year's transition into a new name for Café Valentina, a Milltown restaurant that was known for years as Rosauri's Cucina Italiana.

"We told everybody," said co-owner Michael deVita. "In fact, a lot of people say they like Café Valentina because it's easy to pronounce."

Like Cafe Valentina, La Tonalteca has no plans to tamper too much with the main reason for success — the food.

"Internally, everything is still the same," Galindo said. "We have the same food, the same menu."

What's in a Name

Experts offer these tips for choosing a winning restaurant name:

• Make sure it's memorable and has positive connotations
• Make sure it tells consumers what they can expect
• Who is your target audience? What's your signature selling point?
• Make it easy to remember, easy to spell
• Lean toward words that will be alphabetically favored in listings