Serving Food vs. Selling Food: The Split That Trips Up Every Founder
Class 43 is the service of providing food and drink to be consumed on-premises or delivered — restaurants, cafés, bars, food trucks, catering companies, ghost kitchens. It is not the food product itself. A brand that sells a bottled hot sauce needs Class 30. A restaurant that serves food featuring that hot sauce needs Class 43. A brand doing both needs both classes, and getting this wrong means half the brand's protection is missing from day one. Class 29 covers processed food products like meat, dairy, and preserved vegetables; Class 30 covers staples like coffee, tea, bread, and sauces; Class 32 and 33 split non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. None of them cover the act of serving food to a customer — that's Class 43 alone.
Starbucks' Four-Class Strategy
Starbucks started as a coffee retailer and became one of the most diversified food and beverage brands in the world, and its trademark portfolio reflects every stage of that expansion:
- Class 43 — coffee shop and café services, the core business
- Class 30 — packaged coffee, tea, and baked goods sold in stores and grocery channels
- Class 32 — Starbucks-branded beverages and ready-to-drink products
- Class 35 — retail store services for merchandise and products
That structure means a competitor can't open a coffee shop called Starbucks, can't sell packaged coffee under the name, can't distribute a canned Starbucks drink, and can't run a retail store selling Starbucks goods — four separate but coordinated registrations, each closing a different gap. For a new restaurant brand, the practical lesson is to file Class 43 first as the foundation, then add classes as the business actually expands into packaged goods, merchandise, or franchising, rather than trying to pre-file every future possibility.
Ghost Kitchens Count as Restaurants
The rise of delivery-only food brands raised a real question: does a kitchen with no physical dining space qualify for trademark protection as a "restaurant"? The USPTO has consistently held that food preparation and delivery services constitute use in commerce for Class 43 purposes — a delivery-only brand preparing and delivering food is providing restaurant services in the broad sense the class encompasses. Several delivery-only brands have successfully registered marks here with descriptions like "restaurant services, namely, preparation and delivery of food and beverages for consumption off-premises."
Hotels live here too. Class 43 covers hotel services, bed and breakfast services, and short-term accommodation. Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, and Airbnb's accommodation services all hold Class 43 registrations alongside Class 39 (travel) and Class 36 (real estate and financial services related to accommodation). The sharing economy has pushed new entrants into this space — a boutique rental service or vacation-property brand needs Class 43 protection before marketing begins.
Frequently Asked Questions
I operate a food truck. Do I need a trademark?
If you've built a following around the truck's name and plan to expand — a brick-and-mortar location, a second truck, packaged products — a Class 43 registration protects what you've built. Food truck brands get copied locally often, and federal registration gives national priority and standing to enforce.
What about a food blogger or recipe website? Is that Class 43?
No — publishing recipes or running a food content site is Class 41 (education, publishing) or Class 42 (software services if it's a platform). Class 43 requires the actual service of providing food or accommodation to customers.
Can two restaurants in different cities have the same name?
Without federal registration, a restaurant's name is protected only where it operates under common law, so two restaurants can share a name if they've never operated in the same market. Once either files a federal application, priority locks in nationwide, and the other must stop using the name or prove prior use in its specific territory.
Explore Class 43 trademark registrations to research food service and hospitality brands in the USPTO registry.