Doughboy’s Bake Shoppe closes; legal conflict over name blamed
Doughboy’s Bake Shoppe has closed its doors after a months-long fight with General Mills, owner of the Pillsbury Doughboy trademark, over the use of the Doughboy name.
Owners Claudia and Mike Milladge announced the closure earlier this week through the company’s Facebook page.
“We felt so bullied,” Claudia Milladge told the Journal in June. “The first reaction is to throw a fit, but what can you do against a corporation like that?”
General Mills, which purchased Pillsbury in 2001, was ranked 165 on the Fortune 500 list this year.
Doughboy’s opened in January and received a cease-and-desist order from General Mills just two weeks later.
The small bake shop, in the Far North Shopping Center at San Mateo and Academy, isn’t the first startup to tangle with General Mills over naming rights. In 2016, My Dough Girl LLC, a Salt Lake City-based bakery, agreed to change its name rather than risk a long court battle.
Doughboy, or a variation on that name, appears on at least a dozen different businesses across the country, from pizzerias in Fort Lauderdale to pool manufacturers in Arkansas.
According to the Doughboy’s Bake Shoppe Facebook page, the closure is directly related to the name change controversy and the expense involved. “The General Mills name change was just too much for a small startup like us,” wrote Milladge.
In June, Milladge estimated that the cost could exceed $10,000.
Milladge says the shop was named after her father who went by the name Doughboy and taught her how to be a pastry chef.