Storm in a tea room!
Bettys cafe in legal threat to tiny rival over Fat Rascal cakes
IT’S a cross between a scone and a rock cake, but as every true Yorkshireman will tell you, ‘there’s nowt like a fat rascal’.
Versions of the fruited cake have been baked in the region’s kitchens for centuries but now a row has erupted because one tea room is enforcing its legal right to sole ownership of the delicacy.
The famous Bettys tea rooms, which launched its fat rascal 34 years ago, keeps the recipe a closely guarded secret and has claimed credit for popularising it again.
The company bakes about 10,000 every week, and decorates them by hand.
But when Bettys heard that the tiny Sandgate Cafe in the seaside town of Whitby was also selling fat rascals, they summoned their lawyers.
Bettys holds the registered trademark to the name ‘fat rascal’, as well as ‘Yorkshire fat rascal’ and ‘little rascal’, and any other commercial enterprise selling a cake by that name faces legal action.
The Sandgate Cafe has only three customer tables and owners Helen Matos, 52, and Mark Whittaker, 53, were stunned to be confronted by Bettys company secretary Sheila Huntridge.
They were ordered to stop using the fat rascal name and received two legal letters.
Miss Matos said: ‘We were absolutely flabbergasted that they would target our tiny little cafe, which they clearly see as some kind of threat.
‘And for them to trademark the fat rascal name is preposterous.’ Fat rascals were originally said to have been baked on open turf or peat fires on Whitby Moor.
She added: ‘So if anyone has a right to sell them surely it’s a cafe in the town where they were invented?’
Mr Whittaker learnt to make the Yorkshire delicacy – best served warm with butter or cream – as a five- year- old with his mother. He and Miss Matos set up the cafe less than two years ago when he was made redun- dant from the local potash mine and their fat rascals became increasingly popular.
However, the little cafe has now been forced to change the name of its cakes to Whitby Fatties. Bettys is fiercely protective of its image and reputation and has previously taken action against small businesses over trade names. Miss Matos said: ‘I think the real problem here is that we were becoming very well known for our fat rascals, which are absolutely delicious and made fresh on site by Mark. ‘ Someone commented on TripAdvisor that ours are better than Bettys, that’s a customer’s words not ours, and I think someone at Bettys has noticed and they decided to try to put us in our place.’
Mr Whittaker said: ‘It’s hard to define what a fat rascal is, the best way is to try one.
‘It’s somewhere near a scone and a rock cake, but it’s neither. It’s a simple recipe, a fat, a flour and fruit, and I learnt by watching my mum, Joyce and my Auntie Doreen. How Bettys were ever able to trademark the name is beyond me, I guess no one thought to challenge it.’
Fat rascals are said to have originated in Elizabethan times but the first official record of the name can be found in the 1855 Glossary of Yorkshire Words and Phrases.
A spokesman for Bettys and Taylors said: ‘We’re sorry we’ve had to bring a disappointment to Helen at the Sandgate Cafe.
‘As a family business, we’re committed to protecting the name of our specialities for the future and on behalf of all those who hold Bettys dear. It’s what any business has to do.’ So what makes the Bettys fat rascals so special? ‘Our recipe is a closely guarded secret and despite many requests has never been shared,’ the firm said.
‘Absolutely flabbergasted’