Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo Cantina Wins Court Injunction Against Alleged Rogue Hollywood Location

Bill Donahue
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Sammy Hagar has won a court order barring an allegedly unauthorized Hollywood location of his Cabo Wabo Cantina from continuing to use the chain’s name and branding while their dispute plays out before a judge.

In a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday (Mar. 5), a Los Angeles federal judge sided with Hagar’s company, Red Head Inc., and ruled franchisee Robert Azinian was prohibited from using “Cabo Wabo” trademarks for any purpose, including a new location on Hollywood Boulevard that sparked the rocker’s lawsuit.

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When it comes to that particular eatery, Judge George H. Wu wrote that the injunction specifically bars Azinian from “representing to the public, in any way, that the Restaurant is an authorized Cabo Wabo Cantina restaurant.”

Tuesday’s order came amid an escalating legal dispute between Hagar and his former business partner over Cabo Wabo Cantina — a brand of Mexican-themed eateries started by the Van Halen rocker in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in 1990 and later franchised into locations in Las Vegas and Hollywood.

Azinian’s company, which operated the Hollywood outpost for years, sued Hagar in September, claiming the singer had repeatedly breached their agreements and then unfairly tried to terminate the deal. The lawsuit claimed that the two sides had been at odds for more than a year over Azinian’s concerns that Hagar’s company was failing to support the Hollywood franchise. His lawsuit noted one such grievance was that the rock star himself was “not visiting and entertaining” at that location.

Hagar’s company (Red Head) hit back in January, filing a separate lawsuit in federal court that accused Azinian of infringing the Cabo Wabo trademarks. The case claimed that the partnership had clearly and lawfully been terminated because of Azinian’s own actions, but that Azinian had chosen to “surreptitiously” open a new location in Hollywood anyway.

Last month, Red Head asked for an immediate injunction — warning that Azinian was using Hagar’s branding but that the company had no oversight over the business, including the quality of food: “Every day that the Cabo Wabo Cantina at the new Hollywood location continues to operate under the ‘Cabo Wabo’ brand, it soils the name, reputation, and goodwill that Red Head has developed.”

In Tuesday’s order, Judge Wu was seemingly swayed by those arguments. He said Hagar’s company was likely to eventually win the lawsuit, and that it would face so-called “irreparable harm” if Azinian was able to continue using the Cabo Wabo Cantina branding while the case played out.

“Red Head has shown that it has suffered, and will continue to suffer, irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction — including harm to Red Head’s reputation and loss of goodwill, both of which are not fully remediated by damages,” Judge Wu wrote.

Neither side’s attorneys immediately returned requests for comment on Tuesday.

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