Joe’s Wine Co. Now Has No Signage As It Battles Infringement Suit by Trader Joe’s

A new East Village wine shop, which originally opened as Joe’s Wine Co., has apparently suffered a setback in its legal battle against grocery giant Trader Joe’s.

The store had bright signs out front before its grand opening, but when Straus News visited this week, all signage had been removed from the storefront.

Trader Joe’s has not had a wine store in Manhattan since Aug. 15, 2022, when it abruptly shut down its own bustling store on E. 14th St. after 15 years. The move happened shortly after employees there said they wanted to hold a union certification vote.

A sign that the corporation posted on the door at the time said: “We look forward to sharing with you our plans for an even better wine shop experience to our New York customers as soon as they are finalized.”

Yet two-and-a-half years later, the grocery store chain has not opened a new wine store anywhere in New York State. Instead, the grocery giant claimed in a November lawsuit that Joe’s Wine Co. had created confusion among consumers by violating their trademarked aesthetics.

A federal judge partially agreed to a temporary restraining order against Joe’s Wine Co., located at 113 3rd Ave., on Dec. 9. Lewis L. Liman ordered that Joe’s Wine is “prohibited” from using “a circle logo similar to Trader Joe’s circle-shaped logos, red as the predominant color, and the term “Joe’s Wine Shop.” He also ordered that they are prohibited from using: “(1) cedar planks on the walls; (2) handmade signs and murals; (3) tropical and floral designs; and (4) illustrations in turn-of-the century printing styles.” These latter items appear to match Trader Joe’s self-described “trade dress” he ruled.

Judge Liman added that a hearing on a full preliminary injunction against “Joe’s Wine Inc.” was scheduled for March 25.

The tiff follows Trader Joe’s controversial closure of its popular Trader Joe’s Wine Shop on E. 14th St. in 2022, while employees were in the middle of a union drive. This earned them a rap from the National Labor Relations Board, which was celebrated by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, who had appealed to the federal agency. The grocery giant has since opened a spin-off shop called Trader Joe’s Pronto in the space, but it doesn’t not sell wine or spirits.

The lawsuit also cited a previous Chelsea News article from last August, before the new store opened, to that end. Indeed, at least one Manhattan customer who spotted “coming soon” signage for Joe’s Wine Co. believed that Trader Joe’s was returning to the business of selling alcoholic beverages.

Specifically, lawyers pulled a quote from a New York resident that said that they believed “Joe’s Wine Co. was part of Trader Joe’s...I thought [Trader Joe’s was] just splitting it up from previous location and moving it over here. I mean, it looks the same, really with the fonts and colors, plus it was pretty inexpensive.”

The suit then alleges that the “defendant’s current storefront is continuing to cause significant consumer confusion.”

Notably, not everybody in the August 2024 article appears to buy the notion that Joe’s Wine Co. would be infringing on Trader Joe’s trademarks. Sheila Stainback, a retired NYU journalism professor, noted: “Maybe they are doing it, maybe they aren’t, but there’s also Joe’s pizza right across the street and it’s totally unrelated to Trader Joe’s right? It’s just a common name.”

”I mean, nobody has a stranglehold of the name Joe, that’s all I’m saying. Is it a coincidence? Yes, it’s a good coincidence for them, and if their prices reflect what everybody’s expecting, they’ll be great for the neighborhood I suspect,” she added. Her quote was not included in Trader Joe’s November lawsuit.

Attorneys for Trader Joe’s did not reply to a request for comment as of press time. A representative for Joe’s Wine Co. simply said “no comment.”